Secrets Still
by Darlin
Summary: Logan married Jean but found she wasn't what he thought she was. Jean discovered Logan was in love with Ororo & she had no intention of losing him. Ororo gave up a chance to be with Logan, no regrets, but watching his marriage disintegrate there are plenty of regrets now. One may kill for love & another might overcome death for love. (Kinda sorta a companion piece to Secrets.)
1. There is no Happily Ever After

**Secrets Still – by Darlin**

**A/N** – This is a story I wrote years ago that actually went with a previous story I wrote called **Secrets**. It's not necessary to read that at all. I edited this one a lot which is why **Secrets **was just a one shot. This story is five chapters long, finished with just a little tweaking to be done on the other chapters so will probably have new chapters up very quickly.

**Disclaimer** – I neither own the X-Men, make profit from my little endeavor nor mean to infringe upon Marvel's copyrights.

**-xox-**

**Chapter One – There is no Happily Ever After**

It was autumn with a hint of chill in the air but the weather was holding sunshiny bright. Shouts of derision and bursts of laughter greeted Logan when he pulled up to the school. But his windows were up, his music blasting. He put the jeep in park and sat there, letting the engine idle. He was home, the last place he wanted to be. He dreaded going inside. Jean would be there. Marriage to her had been hell. He was sick to death of it and of her.

Finally he turned the radio off then the ignition, let the peace of the momentarily silence seep into him, a much needed respite before he had to face her fury. He was late. She would be furious because she was always suspicious when he was late. But a whoop and a loud burst of cheering suddenly made him remember just what he was late for. He almost sighed with relief as he realized she wouldn't show her anger in front of the others. She'd pretend to be sweet, loving, and concerned as long as everyone was there.

He grinned, enjoying the thought of her having to suppress her anger, biting at the bit to ream him good once the outing was over. But he'd keep the party going all night just to thwart her. Then when the bonfire was put out and the last beer finished, the last straggler shuffling off to bed, he'd tell her that he was finished, that he wanted a divorce. After that he'd be free to see Ororo whenever he wanted and he'd never have to worry about Jean's jealousy again.

He grinned. He could hear Ororo cheering someone on. She'd never played baseball as a kid but she loved the game once they'd introduced it to her. He got out of the jeep, slammed the door shut, and quickly headed out to the back with a pep in his step, Jean already forgotten.

**-xox-**

Dallas, Texas changed everything for the group of X-Men that had saved the lives of everyone on Earth by defeating Forge's nemesis Naze. They had sacrificed their lives but when Roma brought them back to life as an reward Ororo had decided to take advantage of the fact that the world believed they'd died. If no one knew they were alive then they could take the battle to their enemies. Logan and the others had agreed. Some of them remembered that time well while others, having gone through the Siege Perilous and transformed, given yet another second chance, only retained vague dream like memories. Logan remembered it as if it had happened yesterday.

He remembered how he'd never hesitated to follow Ororo where ever she led, into death or into the desolate Outback. He remembered the fun they'd had, the hell afterward. Mostly he remembered falling in love when he'd least expected it.

The day he knew he loved her they were bathing in their usual swimming hole, splashing water, playing around, laughing, just having fun. It shouldn't have been any different than the day before but something happened. He couldn't explain it but he still remembered the exact moment he looked at Ororo and knew she was the one. Some how something had changed between them. He'd just caught her after a a heated race and she was out of breath but laughing and when he splayed his hands over her backside and pulled her against him she'd nearly sunk into his arms, almost as if she were trying to meld herself to him, helplessly without any resistance and he knew he wanted to take care of her for the rest of her life.

He pulled her closer, didn't stop to think, just kissed her. The kiss was gentler than he'd intended and gentler than she'd ever imagined possible and then it grew, slow, tender, sweet, hot, into a passionate crescendo that left him unable to think and when he finally loosened his hold on her they were both out of breath. What he saw when he looked at her was exactly what he felt and another kiss turned into another and then another and Ororo responded as if she were feeling long pent up emotions she'd denied herself for far too long. And he knew something was happening between them, something they wouldn't be able to back out of – if they let it happen and he wanted it to happen – but Ororo pushed away.

"I think we should go back," she said.

"Don't wanna go back," he murmured, catching her hand and drawing her close again, his lips brushing against her chin then seeking her lips again.

Her hands were like a wall pressed against his chest. It didn't stop him. He rubbed his cheek against hers, so gently she actually closed her eyes. This simple caress, his hard stubble brushing against her too long untouched skin, sent a series of shivers through her and she lost the will to resist. But when he hooked his thumbs into the top of her bikini bottoms, pulling her closer, catching and steadying her as she almost lost her footing, her eyes flew open and she shook her head.

"No. This isn't what the team needs," she said and broke the embrace. "It isn't even what _you_ need."

He'd wanted to tell her she was wrong, that they had a chance here in the Outback, that they could make this work, but the look on her face, almost that of disgust, the firm lift of her chin, the tremor in her voice, told him she wasn't giving in despite herself or maybe _to_ spite herself he later thought. And so he'd smiled and chuffed her on the chin making light of something that was anything but light to him.

"Just messin' with ya, darlin' but I can't deny it's always a pleasure to kiss those beautiful lips of yours." He turned and dove into the water not giving her a chance to reply, not caring if she believed him or not.

The water dampened his desire as soon as he dove in. Always the levelheaded boss, he thought. She wouldn't allow anything to mess with that. He should have realized that but the moment had caught him off guard, his feelings for her had been unexpected. In that long moment he'd known that he'd never want another woman. Only that woman didn't want him.

When he finally got out and she handed him a towel, physical desire had been quelled but emotional desire, something he hadn't felt for anyone besides Jean for a long time, hadn't diminished. He'd hoped it would have. After her rejection he didn't want to feel tied to her and he told himself he wasn't, that he wouldn't be but his heart betrayed him. He gave her a grin though, toweled off, got dressed because she already was, and shortly after that they were whisked away thanks to Gateway who always seemed to know what they needed.

Gateway the enigma. He probably had all the answers too, like why Ororo had brushed him off. Ororo spent a lot of time just sitting up there with the old man. Gateway, ever silent, never even acknowledging them but always so aware. Logan had a feeling she was telling the little guy things she'd never tell anyone else because Gateway never judged, he just listened. Logan imagined she was telling Gateway things that she could have easily been telling him because he would've listened to her without judgment, just like he always had. But he knew she wouldn't go to him for anything now.

Finally, after days of not being able to stop thinking about Ororo and battling with his indecision Logan hiked up the hill. He'd talk to her; get her to see it could work, that what he felt for her was something he didn't want to lose. He trudged determinedly forward, mind made up. She didn't see him coming. She was sitting with the small Aborigine talking to him just like Logan knew she'd be, telling him all her troubles maybe. But when she did see him, even before Logan could get a word out, she rose from the ground as if she meant to go. Her face, so open and full of emotions when she'd been speaking to Gateway, was now the calm, serene mask she always wore. The calmness even lasted when they were caught up in a vortex of Gateway's making.

It took only a few moments for Ororo to recognize their surroundings, less for Logan. He could smell the stagnant algae in the lake and all the other little scents that told him they were home.

"Home," she whispered, the serene mask replaced with an expression of hope and joy that made him smile.

"Yeah," he muttered, too busy looking at her to care where they were.

"You can . . . you can see if she's here," Ororo said, her voice hesitant, almost inaudible.

He looked at her, confused. "I don't know what ya mean. Who?" he questioned and then he knew. "Oh," he said but quickly added, "Nah, she's always been with Scott, always will be. That's been over a long time, truth to tell never ever got started."

Ororo turned away from the lake and looked towards the mansion. In the distance it looked like a magical castle, fog rising at it's base, lighted windows glowing like golden sunshine.

"Look, 'Ro, Gateway brought us here for a reason, maybe 'cause he wanted us to talk about what happened the other day."

She chuckled. "No, I'd no wish to return here though this place is dear to me. My life is in Australia now. Perhaps though, he meant to show us both that your heart is here where her memory is the strongest."

Logan looked at the mansion, brow furrowed, unsure.

"If she's alive . . ." Ororo said, unable to say more.

"She can't be," he muttered.

"But you wish she were," Ororo responded.

They looked at each other in lingering silence. And as if the silence was their answer they were whisked away just as before – returned to their base in the Outback. Ororo glanced at Logan who looked as confused as he'd looked just moments before in New York. A grim look of realization spread over her face. She'd been right although she'd hoped she wasn't. After stooping to touch Gateway's thin shoulder and murmuring her thanks Ororo started down the hill.

Logan growled quietly trying to hold back his anger. "You think this is what I wanted, huh old man? What? You think I ain't good enough for her, that it?"

Gateway neither spoke nor looked at him. As always ever silent.

"Maybe I'd be good for her," Logan said. "You ever think about that? I know her better than anybody! Known her since – ah hell, you don't give a rat's ass what I think an' neither does she. She's got time for you an' nothin' fer me," he said before striding off in the opposite direction Ororo had taken.

**-xox-**

Nothing really changed after that. Logan went on a few solo road trips, and one with Alex where they wreaked a little havoc. But one day he came back after a trip and found Ororo gone, found everyone gone. Then, caught off guard,by the Reavers whose compound they'd stolen, he'd been captured and literally hung up to die. But his luck held and he'd been saved by a kid who called herself Jubilee, real name Jubilation Lee, the stowaway he'd caught scent of once or twice in the compound but he'd never thought much of it with everything else going on between him and Ororo and various battles.

The kid said she'd seen the bigger blond guy kill Ororo with those power things coming out of his hands. He didn't believe it. He couldn't. They'd faced down all kinds of bad guys, how could she be killed by one of their own?

With the kid's help he'd made it out of Australia and eventually found other X-Men. But Ororo's death, the severe beating he'd taken, everything he'd been through had worn him down. He'd felt as if he were losing his sanity, seeing people, having hallucinations. The only thing that had kept him grounded during that time were thoughts of Ororo because thoughts of her were almost always in the back of his mind, something normal, something familiar.

And then after the Outback, and Jubilee and the new Betsy, and discovering Ororo as a child and then her transformation back into an adult and with Remy constantly hanging around her and her old boyfriend Forge back in the picture Logan had had a hard time adjusting. He hadn't expected that he would miss her so much even though she was living in the same house.

The thing was she didn't seem to remember what had happened in the Outback, how he'd kissed her after a boys night out, how he'd held her at the swimming hole, had wanted to make love to her. And the one time he had mentioned it she'd looked and sounded as clueless as he'd known she was. Her memories of their time in Australia were fuzzy at best she'd admitted.

But slowly those memories started coming back and sometimes she'd cast a stray look in his direction and remember his strong body, his arms wending around her waist pulling her to him, his breath warm on her skin, his lips hot and persistent. But she never knew that he'd wanted to be with Ororo whatever the outcome might have been.

He'd never know Ororo had wanted it too, that she had essentially said no because she felt he only wanted her as a replacement for Jean. Their beloved Jean. But she didn't know that when he'd held her that day that Logan had lost himself as he'd kissed her. He'd forgotten Jean completely and never would have considered her again. But Ororo had been adamant. No, she would not be a replacement for Jean. And she wasn't, not then, not later even when she fought not to regret her decision that day.

Then they'd discovered Jean was really alive and so Ororo knew there could never have been anything between her and Logan, that she'd made the right decision. She would not be second cello or bass or violin or whatever Americans called it. And so they both moved on.

Later tragedy struck. Scott died and Logan took Jean out a few times, probably got her drunk before flying her out to Vegas, Ororo thought much later. She didn't like to think of that time for Jean and Logan actually got married in Vegas then called the school with the news and that was that.

Ororo, with ears pricked, a silly grin on her face, heart beating crazily, waited patiently for her turn to talk to Logan when Kitty picked up the phone and excitedly shouted out that Logan was on the line. But Ororo's face fell in less than a minute as Kitty happily spilled the news.

A shock ran through her body, sinking into her stomach and then she caught herself and gave a farce of a smile. Of course she knew they'd been dating, knew how Logan felt about Jean so she shouldn't be surprised. She wondered what to say. What should be her appropriate reaction?

Finally when Kitty looked at her expectantly she managed to say, "Really!" and tried to sound pleased. But when Kitty handed the phone to her she shook her head and waved it away. Only Jubilee snatching the phone away averted attention to Ororo's dismal reaction to the elopement.

She practiced what she would say when they returned.

Congrats.

I wish you all the best.

Good luck.

When she finally did see them she felt as if she were going to vomit. But she wore her fake smile well. It was all she did, smile, that and bobbing her head up and down like some caricature of a bobble head doll. But no one noticed. Least of all Jean or Logan. The pair were caught up in the joy of newlywed bliss.

Ororo wished she could hope their marriage would last but she knew it wouldn't. Which one of them would be hurt first she didn't know.

Surprisingly Logan broke first, storming from the boat house in sullen silence, moving back into his room in the mansion. Just needed some time alone, Kitty reported back. And perhaps that was the truth. That night he went back to Jean.

It all began when he started refurbishing the small cabin he'd built on the property some time ago. Jean called it that awful outhouse. Logan called it living off the grid, self sufficient paradise. Ororo had never known Jean to be mean it was just that she didn't like the notion of toughing it when there was a mansion on the same grounds.

As they quarreled Logan found himself drawn more and more to Ororo's peaceful hangouts – the roof where she sunbathed, her greenhouse, her attic space. They talked a lot. Slowly, unconsciously, he began to use her, like his own private priestess hidden away in some dark confessional, as if he sought to be absolved, freed of guilt, a futile attempt to cleanse his soul.

He didn't understand her – Jean – her need to fill every moment with noise, the silly plans she made for them daily, like what they'd eat for breakfast, what the cashier told her about his family, where they could find material for curtains and the perfect wallpaper, what color they should be, what color did he like, what color did he like her in – so many questions, almost nonstop. He didn't want noise. Mariko had understood, Ororo understood, he told her and looked at her, his mouth opening wide. For a second he had actually wished he'd married Ororo instead of Jean.

Ororo smiled her fake, empty smile and offered advice he would've taken to heart as he always did except he couldn't think straight. He made a hasty exit and didn't go looking for her for a long time. But gradually, as if unable to resist, he again started searching her out. Finding Ororo in the woods one day he couldn't help admiring her and being glad she couldn't read his mind like his ever prying wife. He said as much and she laughed. It was a spirited laugh tinged with bitterness she couldn't hide.

He'd gotten exactly what he'd wanted she told him.

He said he didn't want his wife in his head, he didn't' feel it was necessary to have a physic bond, that she didn't need to know his every thought like she had with Scott. He complained that he was sick to death of talking and explaining and analyzing and pretending to care about what they talked about and analyzed so often. How had something so simple and so hoped for turned into something so hard to bear? And then he stopped.

Ororo looked amused. "Pretending to care about what?" she queried.

"About . . . about stuff!" he growled.

"What kind of stuff?" She was curious.

"About . . . about . . . things . . . complete strangers . . . jewelry and clothes and hair and furniture and food and how I feel and how fat she looks or doesn't look in jeans and – hell, about everything!" he finished with his face flushing as if an exclamation mark to his frustration.

She shook her head, closed her eyes. She'd thought if she knew their disagreements it would somehow make her feel better but it didn't. It only deepened her growing dislike of Jean. She was sorry for that. It wasn't Jean's fault that Logan had only thought he loved her. But it was Jean's fault that she didn't take care of him properly. Ororo knew she could do a better job. It wasn't difficult to know what Logan needed.

Logan sat down beside her. She glanced at him then looked away. They sat in peaceful quietude for a very long time, drowsily still. Finally she couldn't hold back a yawn. She should have left hours ago. She yawned again and slowly worked the kinks out of her arms. He watched her long slender arms reach for the sky, such a simple move but everything about it tore at him – his nether regions, his heart, his conscious.

"Was it as good for you as it was for me?" she teased.

"Yup," he admitted. How he wished Jean could sit there with him without saying much of anything.

It was growing dark now and the darkness gave the woods a different mood, as if a different world.

It was so easy to wrap his arms around her, pull her to him, hold her, thrill in her arms as they wrapped around him, press his lips to hers, to lose himself in a moment where nothing else existed but this woman who accepted him for who he was.

It was so hard to stop. But they did. They looked at each other, emotions flashing one after another over their faces. Neither of them wanted to hurt Jean.

"Fly you back?" Ororo asked casually, her attempt at pretending nothing had just happened, something she was so used to.

He shook his head. "Just like that? You got nothin' ta say? You're just gonna leave?"

She looked at him. Her body was still all a tingle. She wanted him. He was married. His wife just happened to be her best friend.

"Just like that," she said.

He knew her meaning. No, she was not going to have a sordid affair with him.

"That's not who we are," she said.

He knew she expected better of him. Everyone knew he was about honor and respect but he wasn't some super samurai, he was just a man. And sometimes love outweighed honor. Love. He realized that he still loved Ororo but that it was too late. She had been right, he thought. Jean alive had changed how he'd felt. But now he was miserable. He'd ruined his and Jean's lives, he couldn't ruin Ororo's life. So he let her go.

It wasn't long though before he sought her out again and then again and again. He couldn't help himself. He did mentally check himself when he was with her. If he allowed himself to gaze over long at her bikini clad body he forced himself to look away. But it wasn't her body that drew him. It was her, everything about her. Just as it always had been. It wasn't lust but love.

"I was blind," he muttered.

How true, Ororo thought – couldn't see the truth to save his life and now that life was forfeited. The life they could have had if not for his obsession with Jean. Something about Jean had called to him, some unseen force that perhaps had tricked him, some sleigh of hand, a faded memory perhaps of a time long forgotten. After all, he had forgotten possibly over a hundred year's worth of memories. She couldn't blame him but she did resent him.

All Logan knew was that being with Ororo made him happy. She demanded nothing but serenity. She laughed at his jokes, good and bad, respected his need for solitude and understood why he needed it. He was surprised that she still let him hang around her. It wasn't easy on him, it couldn't be easy on her. He guessed, hoped, more than knew, that she felt the same way he did. That she wanted more and knew how easy it would be for her to sink into betrayal with him. He needed that, to feel that she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

Every morning he woke beside Jean he would immediately think of Ororo – her soft, beautiful, brown skin shining in the morning sun as she ran, damp with perspiration, or her body bared in a revealing bikini, laying on her back, topless on the roof as she soaked in the sun that somehow seemed a part of her – him above her sinking into her feeling how exquisitely tight she was while she dug her nails into his back, hard like he liked it and calling out his name, uninhibited and wild just for him, something Jean would never do.

"Owww! What the . . . ?" he exclaimed suddenly, his fantasy lost to reality.

Jean's teeth were covered in his blood from where she'd savagely bitten him. She shoved him off of her then bounded off the bed and raced to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. He heard the shower shortly and guilt overtook him.

He'd actually let his guard down for a moment, fantasized it was Ororo he was making love to, forgetting Jean was even there. Now he knew his wife knew. Her snooping into his mind because she wanted them to share intimacies on a level no one else could ever do was driving him crazy. He wondered how Scott had ever stood it. Did Emma do that too? Did all female mind readers want to pry into their man's head as he pounded into her while all he wanted was to have an orgasm and nothing more than that? She said she couldn't help it, that they were married and were so close it was just second nature.

She'd meant to hurt him but he was already healing. He hadn't meant to hurt her. A long deep sigh and shutting out the dark bedroom as he closed his eyes did nothing to change the tragedy that he'd just started. Or had the tragedy first started when he'd said his vows?

Ororo appeared, naked, smiling, moving towards him, laughing that little laugh she had when she was nervous and excited and emotional, a rare laugh, but he'd heard it so many times of late. As she sunk over him with the same need he had he let the fantasy take over and he finished what he'd started with Jean but without her now.

"Finished?" Jean asked when she came out and saw the sated look she knew so well on his utterly guilt free face.

He'd been drifting off and now tried to pretend he was asleep, laying completely still. He groaned a little to make it believable but he was a bad actor.

"Rot in hell," Jean snarled.

He heard her moving around, dramatically opening and shutting dresser drawers, knew she was packing. He almost held his breath. If she left him, gave him a divorce she could find someone like Scott and he could have his chance to be with Ororo! And as soon as he came to that sudden unplanned realization his face lit up. He was relieved, thrilled and already thinking of how he'd approach Ororo. The moment was much like a blast of fresh, cool air after long being cooped up inside a too hot house. But it wasn't at all like that to Jean.

She stopped. Slowly she turned around. She knew that he had to know that she'd picked up his stray thoughts, they'd been so loud, so heartfelt. Like a fool she'd hoped the change in mood was for her. Now she tugged at the tie to her robe, tightened it, then she got back into bed, pulling the covers over her and rolling to the far left side. He watched with his mouth hanging open. It was the last time she spoke to him in private and the first time she made an effort to keep her thoughts to herself.

**-xox-**

The next morning when Ororo greeted Jean with a smile and a, "Isn't it a beautiful morning?" Jean simply looked at Ororo blankly.

Guilt made Ororo fidget. It wasn't her fault if Jean was miserable.

"No, it isn't a good morning, and yes it is your fault," Jean replied and smiled at Ororo's aghast look. "I'd say the gloves were off, wouldn't you?" Jean murmured as she found a cup then took hold of the coffee pot.

"I don't know what you mean but I don't like it when you read my mind."

"It's so uncharacteristic of me isn't it?" Jean said, voice dripping with honey. She smiled at the others in the room but no one was paying any attention to them. Her voice dropped and she hissed, "What did you expect when you've been trying to steal my husband?"

Ororo coughed, the swallow of tea she'd just taken going down the wrong way. All normalcy had been washed away.

"Don't try to deny it. I know he's been spending all his free time with you."

"That would be more of a Logan problem and not my problem don't you think?" Ororo asked through almost sealed lips, her eyes flickering over the others.

"Why would he be interested in you if you hadn't done something to make him think he had a chance with you?" Jean whispered.

Thoughts didn't count, Ororo mused to herself. It was obvious she was enjoying this Jean saw. The light in her eyes, the shielded thoughts, the smile threatening to spread over her face – the face Jean had loved almost since the first day she'd met Ororo, a face anyone could love, open and so serene. She hated Ororo now. She never would have thought it possible but her husband wanted her best friend. She didn't know how to make that compute or how to deal with it.

"Don't think I'm letting him go so you can have him. I'll kill you first _sister_," Jean said in a low threatening tone before she set her coffee cup down and sailed out of the room with a smile dripping with insincerity. It was the last time the erstwhile best friends spoke to each other.

Ororo hadn't expected to feel a darkness that wouldn't leave her. She wasn't used to venom from Jean. She would've expected it from Emma, possibly even from Rogue or Betsy but not Jean. Jean had been with her through horrendous times and happy golden times. Yes, they'd been like sisters. There was no joy in losing someone who had meant so much to her for so long even if Ororo had come to dislike Jean's treatment of Logan. And knowing that Logan wanted her and not his wife made no difference and how could it if Jean wasn't going to let him go?

Jean's reaction inadvertently further fueled Ororo's resentment towards the red head and made her less inclined to shut Logan out. And perhaps that was why when Logan came upon her the next day that she didn't tell him to go away as she'd planned. It was nearly midnight and she was sitting by the lake in the glow of a full moon. She was thinking about him, trying not to feel guilty because she truly hadn't encouraged Logan but she was still wishing things were different for them.

"I couldn't have been wrong when we were in Australia, I couldn't have been," she whispered to herself.

And she knew she hadn't been wrong because at that time Jean was still so much a part of Logan's ideal. Even so, now she regretted the decision she'd made even knowing that when Jean was found alive again he would've dropped her so fast that she might never have recovered. And yet would trying for happiness at least been much better than wallowing in misery and wondering what if?

"Mind some company?" Logan's voice called out in the night.

"No," she automatically replied knowing she should send him back to his wife. But what was it to her if Jean couldn't control her husband?

Logan sat down beside her and they just sat there without speaking. But there was no peace in the silence this night. She felt nervous and guilty and she knew he had to know this. He kept looking at her but biting back whatever it was that he wanted to say. After only a short time the silence felt suffocating and Logan cursed as he got up.

"What's wrong?"

He looked at her. "What do you think?"

"The usual I suppose but, truly, Logan what did you expect?

"What did I expect?"

"Well?"

"I guess I expected her to be more like . . . like you."

"Me?"

"You know, quiet and happy and nice. You don't bug me all the time especially about little stuff, and you don't need to talk all the time. She used to be like you that way but now she won't shut up!."

"Jean was never like me, Logan."

"Yeah she was, she was sensible and happy and sweet."

"That was when she was with Scott, Logan."

He looked at her as her words sunk in. "So you're saying me not being Scott's the problem?"

"She's just different with you for whatever reason. You have to accept that, just try to let it go and make it work. She loves you."

"Then why can't she act like she does?"

"This is a conversation we shouldn't be having, you should talk to her, Logan," Ororo said and rose to go but he caught her hand and stopped her.

"You think I'm crazy?" he asked.

"Aren't we all a little crazy? Hoping for love in this world?"

He looked at her, her hand still clasped in his. "You never complain, never bitch. Why? Are you happy, Ro?"

She caught her breath. Was she happy? Without love, without him? No, she wasn't and she admitted it with a shake of her head.

"What would make you happy, darling?"

"Nothing I care to discuss."

"Now that ain't like you."

"Perhaps then you don't' know me or Jean like you thought."

"No, I know you, Ro. I guess I've been pretty selfish, all my blathering about me."

She couldn't deny it, he didn't expect her to. The silence was more comfortable now as they stood there with hands linked as they observed the other. He wondered what she was thinking. She wished he'd hold her just for a little while and that she'd be strong enough to send him home.

"I shoulda, we shoulda tried, Ororo," he said, stroking her cheek with his other hand.

"That may well be but you loved Jean, you wanted her before me and how much more did you love her when you knew she was alive? I couldn't compete with a ghost, who could?"

"I was really stupid."

She laughed. He gently drew her to him and she sighed with gratitude. One hug and then she'd tell him they could never meet like this again.

"I miss you," he whispered.

"I always miss you," she confessed.

And he kissed her. He didn't stop because he knew she didn't want him to stop and because he wanted to forget everything but the moment – holding her, loving her, the woman he should have chosen but had been too blind of an idiot to see. After a little bit they both broke the kiss as if they were thinking the same thing. Still, they rested their foreheads against each others for a moment longer.

"I'm going to tell her I want a divorce," Logan said.

"Oh, Logan, she'll be devastated!" Ororo said, moving away from him.

"I don't love her."

"The grass is not always greener in another pasture," she said, mangling the American saying.

"You know it's not like that. You know we shoulda tried back in the Outback. What's wrong with us trying if I'm divorced?"

"I don't want to talk about this or even think about it, Logan. She's my best friend or at least she was. You and I have already crossed a line we never should have gotten near and once too many times! We are not Emma and Scott!"

Her last succinct comment stopped him cold. He fumed silently before trying again. "I can't help how I feel about you, Ororo."

"Then we must refrain from seeing each other in any capacity save work."

"Even if I get a divorce?"

"I hope you don't, I don't want to be involved in that. She would hate me even more than she does now. Can't you just try harder and leave me alone?"

"Forever?" he asked.

"Forever."

"Damn you, Ororo, you . . ."

"We're both damned, Logan. Jean already suspects. She's stopped speaking to me, she said she knew I was to blame. Logan, if she knew about this – how would we live with that, hurting her like that? I'm not doing this, Logan, even if you get a divorce."

Logan didn't know what to say. Jean had confronted Ororo. Then he and Jean were finished. He wondered why Ororo couldn't see that. Finally he just shook his head and said, "Fuck."

"My sentiments exactly," Ororo replied and she sailed up into the night sky.

**-xox-**

And that was the state of things when Logan loped out to the field, late but happy for once, his mind made up – hope a thing of joy!.

"You late old man!" Remy yelled.

"I'm here now, looks like just in time," he said but his attention was drawn to Ororo who was at bat. "Watch for Bobby's fast ball, darlin'!" he warned her.

"Why don't you just shut up, Logan?" Bobby said.

"Not my fault you only got the one pitch, kid," Logan chuckled. "Ro, keep your arms – yeah, that's it, just like I taught ya. Looking good darlin'."

Ororo ignored him though she had righted her stance and raised her arms. Jean sidled up to Logan and linked an arm through his.

"Hello husband mine."

Logan nodded but his eyes were still on Ororo.

"_You're rubbing it in, aren't you?_" Jean spoke telepathically.

"Get out of my head," he said and pulled away from her.

Jean laughed a little, embarrassed but trying to show that she wasn't. They both watched Ororo take a swing and miss.

"Strike two," Hank shouted.

The next pitch was wild, crazy wild, and seemed to slow then speed up then curve slightly as if it were determined to find it's target – Ororo's head.

"Bobby, you idiot!" Logan hollered as he raced over to Ororo who went down as she was beaned.

Everyone gathered around her. She was sitting up now, smiling a little sheepishly, assuring them that she was fine and that Hank had two very blue and furry fingers when he asked her how many he was holding up.

"You may have a concussion, Ororo," he told her. "Rest a bit but don't sleep. I'll check on you a little later my dear."

She tried to stand.

"Here," Logan said and caught her up in his arms. "We can sit by the lake."

"That's not fair, Logan. You're not hurt, you're not getting out of this!" Kitty wailed.

"Alright, alright half pint, I'll be back in a minute," Logan said as he hauled Ororo down to the lake.

"You should put me down," Ororo said.

"I'd drop you," he chuckled.

"You, my friend are incorrigible."

"Yup an' you're the only one who appreciates it." He put her down gently. "Want something ta drink or anything ta eat?"

"Just your friendship, Logan, that's all I want."

"You got it, darlin'. You know I'll do anything for you."

"Goodbye, Logan."

He nodded but stood there looking down at her. He wanted to kiss her. He knew Jean was watching but he didn't care. He finally turned and went back to join the game.

Kitty met him half way and told him, "I think Jean's jealous!"

Logan glanced at his wife and didn't feel an ounce of guilt when he saw her flushed cheeks as she watched him with Kitty.

"She'll be fine," he said, glancing back at Ororo who was sitting in the grass swatting at some insect.

"I'm not so sure," Kitty said.

"Don't worry about it, Kitty. I'm gonna talk to her. Everything's gonna be okay."

Kitty looked at Ororo who waved before slowly laying down in the grass and closing her eyes. Ororo had heard their conversation even over the great distance although she didn't know how she had. Neither did she know how everything was ever going to be okay again. Everything felt so strange all of a sudden as if she'd lost all control of herself. And all the while Jean was trying to keep from smiling.

When Jean made a threat she was damn well going to see it through. Logan had flaunted his feelings for Ororo right in her face, in front of everyone, humiliating her! This was _his_ fault. He'd forced her hand. They'd both forced her hand. Well, Ororo wasn't getting her husband and Logan wasn't getting a divorce. She'd make them both pay. Ororo with her life. And Logan, oh she had big plans for him still. He'd wished he was dead after she finished making his life hell on earth but she was never letting him go.


	2. Stealing Unseen

**Secrets Still – by Darlin**

**Chapter Two** - **Stealing Unseen**

The sun's so bright today. Too bright. It's never once been too bright for me before but today I don't know why but it is. How odd. It's so intense and yet it feels softly warm, embracing me and I feel at peace in its glow. It's almost like when you close your eyes while sunbathing and you're lost in the darkness then suddenly open them and the soothing dark reds and blacks that had danced beneath your eyelids are replaced with brilliant light. So bright yet always peaceful, always soothing, beckoning – calling. But even with my eyes closed it's so bright – why is there not the tiniest hint of darkness?

A droning, buzzing thing darts past me then back again – a bee? It almost sounds like the irritating ringing you sometimes get in your ears, intense, constant, slightly annoying and always baffling and somehow amazing. Swatting seems to be futile. I can no longer lift my arms.

While I lay in the grass at the edge of the lake my team mates are playing in the field, a game of baseball. No powers. Hank is checking on me, concerned that I have a concussion but Jean is telling him she did a mind scan and I'm in perfect health, just tired, and to let me rest, that everything is fine. Bobby's pitch went wild. Something was off with it but I cannot understand what. Logan keeps watching me . . . and Jean too, even as she walks back with Hank. I should feel pain where I was struck in the head but I feel light as a feather, no worries even content. I am sorry for _their_ misery.

Peter waves to me off and on, calling me, encouraging me to come back and play. I see him clearly, the tall youthful looking man, his handsome smile, polite air and respectful concern. Even now he scowls at Warren when it's suggested I'm not playing because I have proven that I am no good at this American sport they love so much. How fast we became like brother and sister, Peter and I. No, little brother I haven't the strength to finish the game, not today. My body isn't cooperating. I am so very tired.

Loose disjointed clouds drift above; the sounds of jubilant fun seem far away now. I cannot take my eyes off of this wide beautiful sky, deep, clear blue, playing hostess to the fleeting clouds. Sporadic birds pass like brief shadows fading in the distance. The sun is still too bright – not right at all. I want to close my eyes but cannot. And yet they are not open and I see everything.

There is Kitty siding with Peter telling Logan he never likes it when girls are on his team. He tells her he's always fine when I'm on his team. Kitty is chewing gum and smacking her glove with her fist, acting out the role of the ultimate pitcher. She enjoys teasing Logan. Her antics make Peter smile. She's grown so much. They both have. They're happy together and that gives me happiness.

It's her team against Kurt's. She laughs at something Peter whispers in her ear. He's come to the mound, catcher's mask lifted. I hear their whispered words of love, baseball the last thing on their minds it seems. When Peter finally walks back to take his position behind the batter which is Kurt, her small dragon Lockheed, smitten with her so deeply, distracts her momentarily. He floats above her providing much needed shade. Lockheed has eyes for no other. When he lands upon her shoulder she scratches him soundly behind the ears before shooing him off so the game can continue. She bounces up and down on the pads of her feet much like a tennis player trying to stay limber then she winds up to throw the first pitch.

I see them all as if they were spread out before me like chess pieces on a board. I feel as if I could reach out and caress each one of them. I want to wave and laugh, join in their fun but I cannot. It's as if I've lost all control of myself. And yet I feel fine, even wonderful. Only the brightness bothers me – so bright. Have I somehow disturbed nature's balance?

They're quieter now. Kitty thinks I'm sleeping, instructs them not to disturb me. She is whispering yet I can still hear her every word plainly as the wind swells and blows them to me even as it sends errant insects on uncharted courses all around me. I can hear the smallest bugs bustling, seeking, busy all around me. But instead of being annoyed with the assault I find it curiously peaceful. It's as if their innate sense of peace with their fates, content to continue their essential tasks of survival despite the odds against them, has calmed my soul. Would that man could learn to be so content.

The birds have suddenly stop singing and soon I both smell and see the reason. Does Kurt's teleportation always disturb them so? I have never noticed this before but it must and why not? He's an unknown, a threat, something strange and abrupt that has entered their realm. He is none of that to me. I welcome him. He smells earthy, of sulfuric brimstone. It is a familiar odor I've long become used to and no longer mind. I return his smile. I try at least but find I simply cannot. He looks so . . . sweet as he watches me. His three fingers reach out to me and despite all their peculiarity I want to grasp them and hold them one last time. But I cannot. I do not. Like my smile, my hands are immobile.

I see Rachel studying us. She has been so sad of late, so much has happened to her. She is the daughter of the erstwhile sister of my heart no matter if she hails from an alternate time line. I cannot hold Kurt for I have nothing to give him and perhaps he senses this as well. His eyes are on Rachel now. He grins wide, full and open and just as tenderly as the smile he gave me only mere seconds ago. I am truly hopeful for them.

A puff of smoke and a pungent odor is all I have left of my dear friend after he teleports away, that and my cherished memories of him. In my minds eye I see us dancing in the sky on gossamer breezes, I see the sweet little Bamf doll, as adorable as he is, passed from one young girl to another with love and care. I'll never tire of seeing his handsome face, dark and angelic, full of goodness whether as priest or pirate, hero or man.

He bows before Rachel and doffs a make believe cap. I can almost see the large feathers, so appropriate for such a hat, dipping to the ground with his graceful movement. I imagine him attired in matching garb as he battles scurvy ridden pirates on a teetering wooden deck of an old ship as I've seen him do so often in the Danger Room. Rescuer of damsels in distress. He'd come to mine but I let him go. He deserves more than I could ever give him.

Rachel is happier when he is near; her smile is timid but genuine. She has lost so much in her young complicated life. I know she misses Jean even as I do. Our Jean is not the same. She's not really Rachel's mother, never acted as if she were and seldom even spoke to the poor child. Jean is no longer my friend. It feels . . . odd. I wonder what Rachel's knowledge of what things might become in the future would make of this. What does she know I wonder? But the birds are warbling again and the sun, ever present, is beckoning again – so brightly. Its rays soak into my skin and I am filled with a peace I have never felt before, one that I never imagined possible.

Remy. Beloved partner in crime, protector, confidant, brother, and dearest friend. I see him waiting for his turn at bat. He has no interest in Kurt's coaching attempts, wouldn't know if his teammates were bunting, hoping to walk or stealing a base – I am not as uneducated in baseball as Logan would have you think. Remy's not aware of it because his eyes keep straying in Rogue's direction. And when Kurt makes it safely to first base and it's Remy's turn, instead of focusing on Kitty's pitches the smitten Lothario is still eying his lady love. Kitty strikes him out easily.

Rogue's aware of all this. I know for she is assuming the most alluring stances in center field, turning and twisting here and there, showing off her admirable figure to its best advantage as she lazily battles some flying pest. Now she's wiping sweat from her brow and pretending she doesn't know what she's done to poor Remy but I see her smile knowingly to herself, pleased with her results. And why shouldn't she be? He loves her. She loves him. They always will no matter their disagreements and misunderstandings. If only they could see this and admit this.

"_So, what happened to no powers chère_?" Remy shouts with a twinkle in his devilish eyes. He laughs good-humouredly and in reply she beams so wide it's obvious to even a stranger that she loves him. And in this moment it feels as if only these two exist – through thick and thin, good and bad, in sickness and in health, powers or no powers.

I remember Rogue when she first came to us, young and inexperienced and eager to win our approval. Unable to touch, unable to have what most wish for, true intimacy of a loved one, but so full of fire and spirit and genuine decency. She'd never been fully corrupted by Mystique. She's still feisty even when faced with the return of her powers. She had – no, she has purpose. Remy loves her and for her, despite their arguments or whether they do unite as one, that has to be enough. I let him go. I let them both go – I let them all go.

And I feel as if I'm flying feather light on a wind not of my own making, taking me close, ever closer, to the heart of the sun that calls me, encompassing me and claiming me. There is nothing else for me here. There is no more time.

I see my friends as if I'm watching from above though my body still cannot move. They're laughing and teasing, lighthearted and joyful, at play, at peace. Glimpses of things that were I see like visions on a puff of air. My parents, Achmed el-Gibar, Charles, Yukio, the Acanti, M'rin, Forge . . . so many who touched my life, even Jean but as the dark Phoenix, angry and fierce. And finally Logan, all the times he held me, few though they were. I don't want to let those memories go but they are wrenched from me. I wonder what will become of Logan and Jean? My heart catches in my throat. I will miss Logan the most. Even now I cannot bear to look upon him though I know he is watching me intently.

And suddenly there is Gateway! I wonder why it is that I should see him; it has been such a long time when last we met. But there he is sitting cross-legged as always, unseeing, all knowing, alone in the Outback. His eyes meet mine and I'm shocked to see recognition and something of compassion in them. What is it that he sees? I wonder what Hank would make of all this. I am so tired and the brightness haunts me. I must get up. Certainly I cannot be well!

Lucas and Logan are the nearest to me with Lucas manning first base and Logan having made it easily to first. I want to scream for them to help me. I do not only because I cannot. I can only watch. Both are such hard cases but I can see in their movements how eager they are to win. Lucas watches Logan whom I'm sure means to steal second as surely as Kurt will try for third. Lucas never misses anything. He's so serious. Too serious. Dear Lucas. He has been a good friend to me yet I know now he cannot help me or I him.

Nor can Logan help either of us. One of his disgusting cigars is thrust in the corner of his mouth and he chews at it out of habit. It is not lit. He says he's giving up the habit, that it sets a bad example for the children. He is a sight. Beautiful and wild, contradictions upon contradictions and I remember all the quiet times we've shared. Hiking with friends, sunsets, a rare flower given, grief and dreams shared, playful times, tiny moments of passion shared – hoping for love making that would tide me over for months at a time. What we had was fleeting but true and yet had nowhere to go. I-I . . . wish we had tried!

The sun finally fades, clouds nearly obliterating it. Gray cast skies. I can see sharply all around me; hear all – the birds and insects, the frogs croaking by the pond as well as each and everyone of my friends. Kurt has been caught stealing third by the ever watchful Lucas. Hank's so strong that despite lack of powers or perhaps because he refuses to use his full strength he hits what looks to be a home run to center field that soon looses steam and turns into an easy out for Rogue and now they're switching sides. Laughing, just a little worried about the chance of rain.

Yet it remains so bright. How? Soothingly bright. So peaceful. The sounds of life all around me are steady and sure.

Did I drift off? I hear voices nearing.

"_I told you there ain't no way she's sleepin' in all this flamin' noise! 'Ro's a light sleeper . . . somethin' don't feel right."_

"_Sssh! You'll wake her, sugah!"_

"Vas? _She __**is**__ sleeping!" _

"_Just how're we going to play if it rains? Come on, Hank ol' buddy wake her up so she can stop it from raining, she won't mind!"_

"_Shame on you, Robert! I suggest we let the lovely lady slumber in peace." _

"_If she's got a concussion she shouldn't be sleepin'!"_

"_No concussion, Logan, she's in perfect health, Jean said so!"_

"_You heard de brianiac so leave Stormy be, boy." _

"_We'll be eating soon, she'll want us to wake her. There's roasted corn the way she likes." _

"_Now dun forget my special sauce, she loves dat!" _

"_We're not even finished with the game yet you guys!"_

"_Ja, Rachel is right."_

"_I tell you somethin' ain't right!"_

"_Sssh! You guys are going to wake her! Lockheed leave her alone – come back here!" _

Playful banter_. _ I want to send them all away. I am so tired – just want to sleep. Sleep forever.

The sun is no longer brightness personified and I no longer feel its warmth and yet the brightness lingers. I see such glorious light! And now I know the brightness was not the sun but something else, something more, calling me, claiming me – something wonderful and I am no longer tired. In this one last fleeting moment, it is as if I am one with the earth and sky, the very wind, and I have no fear. I am at peace.

I hear more whispers, voices almost incoherent – so very far away now. I want to laugh and reprimand them for disturbing my deep peace and I try but fail. It is Logan who knows before the others, even before I myself. Despite the others and Hank's insistence Logan is beside me, my hand, cold and limp, in his – his hand warm and . . . and full of life.

"Pum'kin," he says, his voice deep and broken, full of warning, thinking of Kitty – how to tell her?

It is Jean who gives voice: "Storm – oh no. Logan, she's not asleep!" she says with more emotion than I would have ever expected from her since her threat to kill me. Unnatural emotion after how she has felt about me. Did she forgive me then? I couldn't help whom I loved.

I am surrounded by loving friends. My family. Vehement denials are shouted, anger flares and Jean is taken aback by the unguarded emotions. And I see, know that somehow she is not surprised by my plight. Logan says nothing. He can see, smell, feel I, Ororo, am no longer with them, am no longer the Ororo they know. Kitty drops to her knees and buries her face in my hair. She has always thought it soft and fragrant, the color of snow and clouds. A sob catches in her throat.

"No, Ororo! Not you too!" she cries.

I wish I could comfort her but I am slipping away. I cannot help her or myself even if I wanted to do so. She doesn't know. I will be alright.

Stealing unseen like a bandit in the night, somehow appropriate for a one time thief, death seizes Ororo and takes her gently. There is nothing that can staunch the shock or pain her friends feel. Peter draws Kitty to him; his strong arms crush her tight against his chest, his eyes never once leaving Ororo's body. _She was like an older sister to me_, he thinks, blinking hard but determined not to fail Kitty who needs him now more than ever with the loss of yet another of their loved ones.

"Good Lord in Heaven, please – Father God, no," Kurt moans.

"Ain't a better way ta go, Elf. 'Ro went peaceful_," _Logan says, voice firm and certain yet something's off, something's missing, something in the tone of his gruff, deep voice is not quite right.

Hank steps forward ready to aid Ororo if at all possible but he too smells death upon her and knows he is too late. Had he but known, had some indication, the smallest clue, he could have – possibly, perhaps . . . But his logical mind tells him there was no conceivable way he could have known therefore nothing could have been done. It doesn't stop his heart from aching. Consumed by sorrow he never once recalls Jean's assertion that Ororo was in perfect health.

At the look of grief on Logan's face Hank falls back. It takes him by surprise this look, as if, if . . . but there are no more if's for Logan and Ororo now. Hank slowly begins to steer the others away, both students and teachers. All he can do is give those who loved her best a moment alone to mourn over her empty shell.

Truly shaken they move off like lemmings, one following the other, turned one way then another stumbling along, some crying, all in disbelief. Nathan is too stunned to do anything but blindly trail behind the others. Jean grasps the hand he extends to her almost absently and yet instinctively. She knows what he is thinking – _not her too – not my father and Ororo! _

As Lucas helps Hank guide the few stragglers he will always wonder if his coming back to the past has somehow altered events. His thoughts are greatly troubled. _It wasn't supposed to happen like this! This wasn't supposed to be Ororo's fate_!

Rogue doesn't mind when Remy motions for her to go on with the others. She loves Ororo, has never resented her, has always trusted her and always understood the deep bond he has with the woman she too is closest with. He stays near Logan and Kitty who is weeping in Peter's arms, and near the best friend he's ever had and probably ever will have. Kurt too remains but Rachel has embraced him and they both bow their heads in silent prayer, their hands intertwined.

Logan shudders though they all feel the wind – soft, warm, somehow brimming full of life, as if comforting them. He feels that with Ororo's passing some part of him too has died. He thinks of all the women he has loved and survived, of all the missed chances and his heart, torn, slowly crumbles. It's too late. He never got a chance to tell her how he felt. He wonders if Jean knew he was going to end their marriage tonight, so he and Ororo . . . And then he remembers his wife. Ororo is gone and Jean was . . . pretending, acting shocked, saddened. He shudders again. Everything has changed.

The sun sets in a sudden brilliant swash of hues as the clouds break and drift. The splendor goes unnoticed. Birds chirp peacefully as they swoop off in wide arches – unmindful of the loss of one who once shared the skies with them. There are darting dragonflies and determined mosquitoes buzzing here and there seeking for what is most necessary to survive their brief life spans – seemingly uncaring of anything else. The world goes on, oblivious, life and death a circle. The weight of sorrow burdens none of nature's creatures as it does Ororo's friends. They cannot know she smiles down upon them one last time before she is lost in the air like mist after a storm, a whisper on the wind.

**-xox-**

"Funerals should be outlawed. What's the point? When you're dead you're dead, gone, nothin' left. Ro's dead, gone, that's it. Fuck. I know Jean killed her. She's as bad an actor as I am. Just watchin' her wipe her eyes and cry makes me sick ta my stomach. I swear that tissue ain't wet at all.

"Now here's the dilemma, bub, I got no proof but everything in me tells me Jean took Ororo down somehow, telepathy, telekinesis, my baby was lookin' so hot out there swingin' that bat, those short shorts – I know Jean read my mind – an' the next thing I know that ball did some kinda dance and – an' I know it was Jean behind it and so help me God I wanna kill her only . . . only I can't.

"Every time I look at her ever since Ro died I keep thinking of ways to kill her, you know, easy an' fast but maybe as slow and as painful as it gets. I like painful better. She was kind to Ro makin' her fall asleep however she did it but I won't be kind to her when I kill her.

"I know, I know I got no proof. But I know she did what she did and why she did it. She was jealous of Ro 'cause I . . . . All this time I thought I was in love with Jean but I was in love with what I thought she was, not the real woman. And all this time I was still in love with Ororo only I put the fantasy of Jean before everything! An' then when Ro turned me down in Australia – you weren't with us then but you remember when Jean came back from bein' dead an' she was with X-Force, right? So stupid me got all caught up in the Jean spell.

"Man, I almost think she played with me intentionally, led me on with all that sweetness at first. Married the bitch an' she turns into a jealous shrew. Who'da thunk that sweet woman would harangue all day an' all night? 'Logan, honey do you think I look fat in this costume? What about pink and white as a color scheme? Logan, are you listening? Logan, Logan, Logan, Logan!' She just wouldn't shut the fuck up!

"Don't look at me like that, bub. Yeah, I'm drunk. Not as drunk as I want. Fucking healing factor. What? I know Ororo hated my foul mouth but she's fucking dead while my so called wife is alive and probably as happy as she's ever been with her big fat crocodile tears.

"So, here's the thing. I got no proof, not that lack of proof would stop me from killin' her, but I can't. I can't kill Jean. All I can do is divorce the bitch. That's it. What kind of punishment is that? How is that gonna hurt her, make her pay for what she did to Ro, to me?

"Look at her faking those tears. You wanna bet she's smilin' behind them tissues maybe even laughin'?

You wanna know the truth? I know it wasn't really Jean who killed Ororo. It was me, it's my fault we're sittin' here at Ro's funeral. If I'd just listened to her – she was so damn smart, I mean intelligent smart an' she was the best friend you could ever have, a good woman, not play actin' ta reel ya in – but if I'd just listened an' gone back to Jean an' left Ororo alone Ro would still be alive. But if she were alive I'd still be plannin' on talkin' her inta bein' with me after I got a divorce so I guess Jean would've killed her anyway.

"Can't kill her. Want to. Dig my claws so deep, then twist 'em slow an' . . . an' make her cry for real.

"Damn. _I_ killed Ro!

"How am I supposed ta live with that?

"Fuck!

"An' ya know what's even worse? Not Ro bein' dead or Jean bein' her killer but that no one's gonna believe me. There ain't no way Hank or Remy would listen ta me. They'll think I've finally gone crazy or she'll mind fuck 'em so they think _I'm_ crazy. Ro gets no justice an' I'm stuck with this crazy, ass bitch till I can get a lawyer who can't be mind controlled. Now how do I get one of those? You see how fucked up this is?"

Logan's companion tilted his head to one side and nodded as he observed the very drunk Logan. They were sitting in the last row of chairs lined up on the lawn. Most of the others had moved away from him, taken seats closer to the small podium as many of them gave heartfelt eulogies. Jean was getting up now to give hers and Logan could see her looking at him but through what little psychic bond they shared since their marriage he caught a distinct sense of joy. It was more than he could stand.

"Sit down you lyin', hypocritical, bitch!" he roared. "Get off of me! Lemme go! Y'all don't know it but she killed 'Rroro! An' you ain't cryin' – give me that tissue!" Logan fought off his little companion as he got up, knocking chairs out of his way, then ran up to the podium and grabbed his wife.

The other X-Men were slow to act. First, they were all shocked and secondly it was fascinating to watch Logan having an emotional outburst that wasn't based solely on anger. This time his outburst of anger was mixed with intoxication and grief and it was aimed at his wife who was Ororo's best friend and with his sudden and very strange accusation none of them could understand why Jean would want to kill Ororo or why Logan would say anything so absurd. They were simply stunned.

It took Logan's hands around Jean's neck to get them up. But Jean had it under control. Logan was so drunk his mind was easier to get into and she just simply shut it down. He collapsed and she let out a wrenching sob that was actually very good acting.

Lockheed shook his head. He believed Logan because he saw things that others didn't see because often times they didn't know he was even around. He liked the white haired lady Ororo because Kitty loved her and he liked the wild man Logan because Kitty and the white haired lady loved him. The red haired lady Jean, she wasn't close to Kitty at all. Plus he'd seen the little confrontation Jean had with Ororo, and he'd heard the threat. Yes, he believed everything Logan said but he knew no one would believe him just like they weren't going to believe Logan. Besides, he didn't want Jean to do what she'd just done to Logan to him. Or what she did to Ororo. Nope. He didn't want to die and leave his Kitty.

Lockheed shook his head slowly as he watched Hank and Remy carry Logan to the infirmary while Jean, sobbing and repeating over and over that she didn't know he'd take Ororo's death so hard and how much they both loved her, was accompanying her husband. Probably to do some serious mind twisting, Lockheed thought. He shook his head again. He was sorry for the wild man but other than lending a sympathetic ear he couldn't help him. He was sorry about that and very sorry that Jean had killed Ororo. And he was doubly sorry that Kitty was so sad. That meant Peter would be around a lot more if that were even possible. He didn't dislike Peter exactly and he was used to him by now but it still annoyed him that with Peter in Kitty's life he, Lockheed, was second best in her heart.

He wondered if the wild man was third best and if the white haired lady was fourth best. But then he thought that he loved all of them and so why couldn't Kitty love all of them too, not numbered love but just love? He nodded at this epiphany. It was like a light after the darkness. And then, feeling better, partially because, thankfully he knew these X-Men never really died for good, he flew over to Kitty and Peter and actually settled on Peter's lap and then he laid his head on Kitty's arm. Love was good. Kitty would be okay because she had his love and Peter's and even Logan's once the poor, wild man figured out how to live with the truth. Lockheed knew you could do anything if you loved and had love.

~Shakespeare – Sonnet XXXIII ~

_Full many a glorious morning have I seen  
>Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,<br>Kissing with golden face the meadows green,  
>Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;<br>Anon permit the basest clouds to ride  
>With ugly rack on his celestial face,<br>And from the forlorn world his visage hide,  
><strong>Stealing unseen<strong> to west with this disgrace:  
>Even so my sun one early morn did shine<br>With all triumphant splendor on my brow;  
>But out, alack! he was but one hour mine;<br>The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.  
>Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;<br>Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth_.


	3. Can a Goddess Truly Die?

**Secrets Still – by Darlin**

**Chapter Three – Can a Goddess Truly Die?**

Time passed as it has to. Ororo was remembered for a time and then slowly forgotten. Her friends let her go as they had to. And as it always does joy came to them again, to cushion past and future griefs for such is life. No one had believed Logan or if they had at first he was sure Jean made sure they quickly changed their minds. At first she ardently denied having any part in Ororo's death and then she simply never spoke of Ororo at all when they were alone at night in their room and Logan continued to press her.

Now that Ororo was out of the picture Jean was speaking to Logan again. But one thing Logan knew for certain, if someone had accused him of killing Ororo he'd be more than pissed and there would be no way in hell he'd be trying to sleep with that person or acting as if everything was alright. Once a spouse, or anyone for that matter, accused you of killing someone then you had nothing left even if it wasn't true. But if it was true and you were just covering of course you'd go out of your way to be sweet and sympathetic and even shut up more, like Jean was doing. And to him that was the final clue. Without a doubt he knew his wife had killed Ororo, somehow shutting her down through her psionic abilities. What's more, Hank had admitted that such a feat was theoretically possible when Logan had asked him.

He'd also asked for an autopsy. Many times. But Hank, probably thoroughly mind wiped, was adamant that Ororo had died from natural causes so there was no need to go to such lengths. And Logan finally learned what defeat truly was. Jean had complete control of everyone of them. Maybe she hadn't tried to get into his mind but she'd gotten to everyone else. It was as if he were continually hitting his head against an unbreakable wall. They were virtually Jean's prisoners only no one else could see this. He was reminded of a story by Harlan Ellison, the protagonist wanted to scream but he had no mouth. In his case Logan wanted to scream, to shout, but when he did no one had ears to hear.

He mourned hard that first year, drunk more often than not. It took a lot of liquor to get and keep him drunk and he didn't stay drunk for long even then. But it was enough of a difference in him that Jean played the tragic wife that long, hard year. Then they both attempted to move on as had the others, what few remained.

Sometimes Logan still thought of Ororo, missed her deeply, regretting all the things left unsaid as one is wont to do but then he would force himself to leave the past where it belonged. Like Mariko, like the others before her even, Ororo was gone and there was nothing he could do to change that harsh, bleak fact. Still, sometimes he'd slip, go on a binge, get so drunk he'd badger Hank, try to make him do an autopsy, hoping maybe Hank's incredible brain would somehow work through Jean's mental block but it never did. Then he thought his luck had change when Hank grew tired of Logan's drunken insistence that Jean was capable of murder outside of being the Phoenix. And so one night as Logan droned on about his sick theory it was Hank who demanded an autopsy to prove Jean's innocence.

They dug the coffin up when all were asleep, easy enough, but at the crucial moment Hank couldn't open it. He recalled the look of utter heartbreak on Logan's face the day Ororo died and the memory disturbed him enough to make him second guess himself. Logan, unknowingly, feeling exactly like a grief ridden Heathcliff, readily took over, his heart and mind racing. Would Ororo be preserved and as beautiful as the day she died, like Catherine was in just that instant before the air could contaminate that beauty? Would he be able to handle it if that beautiful face became decrepit before his eyes? Would he be able to handle it if she was already badly decayed?

In the end neither of them had the heart to open her casket. Logan just sat down in the dirt and cried. Hank, taken aback, just crept silently away. Drunken Logan wasn't fun to be around. He was beginning to think Logan was losing his mind.

Things didn't get better for Logan. Jean was still with him though he barely acknowledged her. Life had a routine about it. Kill bad guys as much as he could when he could get away from X-Men business, hang with his friends, play poker, and bitch about married life, teach at the school, train, avoid Jean, play with his child. Life kind of sucked except for that. And it got worse.

Almost a year to the day of Ororo's death Sentinels struck. It was as bright and beautiful as the day she'd died, clouds floating gently, birds chirping lazily and the sound of laughter ringing out joyfully. They took out the strongest X-Men first. Logan wasn't there. He'd been at his weekly poker game with the likes of Steve Rogers, Ben Grimm and Nick Fury. He never played poker after that. He would never forgive himself for being gone that day.

Fully caught off guard nearly everyone at the mansion had perished. Only Jean and Hank and Kurt had escaped the first barrage. Considered lesser threats, they were targeted last. Jean who had sensed her friend's alarm and fear and then nothing at all, wasn't caught entirely off guard but she was unable to save anyone. Her warning came much too late. Rogue, Alex, Lucas, Bobby, Peter, Warren, Remy, Dani and the students – none of them had survived. The Professor had nearly escaped but handicapped as he was there was nowhere to flee, his hover chair an easy target.

When Logan got back the mansion was in ruins. Smoldering rubble. Nothing new but the devastation was chillingly unexpected. The sight told him all he needed to know. Almost. He began to dig through the rubble, calling out for his family and friends but finding only charred remains and bones, and the long dead in destroyed caskets with decayed remains. Ororo's casket was among them except when he resolutely nudged the loose lid off there were no remains.

Logan stood over Ororo's casket looking inside the emptiness. He'd been drunk the night he and Hank dug up her casket and drunker still when he'd covered it again with tears and dirt. Now he didn't know what to think. Ororo's body was gone as was his little girl's. Grief overcame him. He was a sitting duck.

Rising from the rubble one Sentinel attacked. Below ground Kitty Pryde had been looking for Peter, Lockheed and the others. Intangible and hearing the ruckus above, she immediately surfaced. She saved Logan. When he woke they were in Mutant town at Jamie Maddrox's office, Logan's skin barely clinging to his bones but he was alive.

Those that had survived the onslaught were there, watching and waiting. Jean, a fiery flaming beauty full of rage that had yet to burn out, Kitty and her beloved Lockheed and Peter whom she found out later had been away at the time of the attack having sneaked out to buy her a ring for her, planning to propose later that day. Kurt who had teleported himself and Jean and Hank to safety was bad off but would recover, and Jamie, Rahne, Guido, Monet, Rictor and Theresa along with a girl only Logan knew, Lalaya, those who had escaped notice there in Mutant Town.

The X-Men rebuilt. As always. Stronger, safer. And after another long hard year Jean and Logan began to feel again. After discovering her husband's feelings for her best friend Logan believed that Jean had simply taken matters into her own hands and killed Ororo because Jean had discovered that she was pregnant and she wasn't going to lose the father of her child. But their beautiful little one year old girl, had been killed in the attack. Her death devastated both parents. The tiny little toddler who followed Logan everywhere had begun to bring hope and life back to Logan. He'd stayed with Jean only to prevent his little half pint from being raised by a crazy murderer. And yes, he saw the hypocrisy in that. But he would have done anything for his little girl and Jean, knowing this, had laid down rules that he was to follow or else he would never see his child again.

Wracked with grief over the loss of their child they mindlessly continued with their routine. Logan ignored Jean and Jean dreamed of the past, she dreamed of life with Scott before Logan, before such unbearable loss of a child barely a year old. But Scott was not the only ghost between them now. And had they known – or rather I should say, had Logan remembered that X-Men seldom remain dead he might never have stayed with Jean. Neither remembered that storms have a way of materializing unexpectedly. But even a telepath who had wielded the power of the Phoenix could not read the future and when one morning, very early, in a mist so thick even Logan's senses were impaired, every bit of the truce he and Jean had managed to achieve after loosing their daughter completely and irretrievably vanished.

Running, any time of the day, was something Logan loved. Rain, shine, snow, fog. It didn't matter. He had ran with Ororo, with Sam – when he was alive, with Alex – when he too was alive. He ran now because he had to. It kept him sane. This form of exercise was like therapy although he never consciously thought of it like that.

The day was misty, grass still wet with dew, just a little chill of autumn but promising. Still, something felt wrong, made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. What better way to discover what might be remiss than taking a jog around the complex? He ran at an easy gait, short thick legs showing every cut in his muscles every time a foot hit the earth. Thump, pause, thump, pause – he couldn't stop listening to the beat of his sneakers against the dirt, as if his senses were shot. Finally he came to a halt, bent at his waist to catch his breath then stood with arms behind his head. It was a bad run. He felt too tight, no, too tense, there was no peace to be had this morning. And then he saw her.

On her knees in the grass, her hair almost one with the mist as it swirled around her, a shroud of whitest white. She was looking at her hands, her lips were slightly parted. And he saw she had no hands. She was in the exact same spot where she'd been when they'd found her minutes after she died.

"Ororo?" he called but she didn't hear or couldn't hear.

A quick look around the field assured him they were alone. He took a step towards her then looked around again. He caught her scent and his eyes squinted in curiosity. Her scent was true but her body was fading like the mist over the field.

"Darlin' . . ."

Large blue eyes captured him in their gaze and he stopped again. They looked larger than he remembered, and more like cat eyes. She was pale too, her color muted and then she was gone.

"What . . . ?"

That was the first time he saw her. A vision? A ghost? He would've doubted himself had he been anyone other than who he was with his superb senses. Her odor was as gentle and sweet as the earth itself, something he would never forget if he lived to be a thousand years old. There could be no mistaking – it was her. The way his heart sped up and the tightness in his shorts all told him it was her.

He didn't tell a soul. He knew he should have but he couldn't bring himself to. First, he knew they would think he was crazy and secondly he felt that if she wanted them to know then she'd appear to them as well.

It was just a few days later when he was thinking it had all been a dream when she appeared again. That morning he ran right into her. She appeared out of nowhere and he couldn't avoid hitting her. She was almost transparent, made of wisps of fog and fragments of skin and bones. They both went tumbling. He'd hit her hard. She cried out, startled and in pain. All he could do was stare as he lay on top of her. Fog, steam, wind, flesh – Ororo.

"Hi," she said in a voice that was both small and large, hers and yet not fully.

"Hi," he replied, stunned, not trusting his senses. Sight, smell, hearing all claimed it was her but – how?

And as he looked into her clear, liquid, blue eyes she disappeared. He hit the ground, shocked and bewildered. But again he told no one. Something held him back. Perhaps Ororo was still alive or either he was seeing apparitions who conversed with him against all probability. If the latter, it was no one's business.

Several weeks later, now noticing the slightest changes in the weather, he saw the mist over the grounds were thicker than usual and it reminded him of this new Ororo. He went for a run hoping against hope to find her but knowing that every day since he'd seen her last he wouldn't see her again. It did not help that Jean was growing suspicious. Normally reticent he had become more so and their already tentative relationship had suffered. He knew he should tell her and yet nothing really had happened so he justified, refusing to dwell upon something that really wasn't anything at all even though he desperately hoped it was.

The old saying was a watched pot . . . And just as he thought this, like a phantom she appeared and he would have run her over again had she not been – what? Made of nothing but air? And rain and snow by the feel of it, he thought as he rubbed his frozen wet body having ran straight through her.

"What the hell? 'Roro?"

"Logan."

He knelt beside her. He could see her fading again, saw water mixed with snow rushing through her body like a second skin.

"Don't go! Tell me what's happening to you, darlin'."

"Logan."

"Yeah, darlin' it's me, talk to me. Let me help you!"

His hand reached out, hesitated only a second before touching her cheek. But instead of meeting solid flesh it passed straight through leaving his hand ice cold and sopping wet. He yanked it back, balled his hand into a fist then blew on it attempting to chase the bitter chill away.

"Logan," she said with large eyes wide with confusion and then she was gone again as if she'd never been there at all.

He debated with himself for days after that, whether or not to tell what he'd seen. Something intuitive, told him not to speak quite yet and so he waited. Every morning he ran in the field where Ororo had died but he never saw her again. After a month passed and Jean was becoming more relaxed around him again, probably because he wasn't so preoccupied with thoughts she dare not trespass upon, he felt it was safe to tell her.

"Jean, listen, I saw Ororo . . . when I was running in the . . ."

Jean laughed. She stopped in the corridor of the school and kissed him on the tip of his nose.

"I think you've had one too many beers this morning honey, maybe you should try drinking a little later in the day," she said with a playful smile.

He started to protest but throughout their married life he had learned that with Jean it was best to just go along with what she wanted. It simply stopped the arguments that had plagued them. He went to Hank instead.

"Hank, now I know you're gonna think this is crazy but what if, just what if you saw someone who was supposed to be dead – they even talked to you – but they disappeared, kept disappearing – what would ya think?"

The curious look Hank gave Logan was less curious than what he'd expected. The bouncing, blue beast, now more a bouncing, blue monstrosity, set his chin betwixt his thumb and forefinger as he contemplated the question.

"How often have you had this visitation?"

"Three times now."

"When?"

"It happens in the morning just before noon when I'm out running."

"Whom have you been seeing?"

He paused.

"Now we can play twenty questions but it would be simpler if you just divulged the source wouldn't you agree my stubborn friend?"

"It's Ororo."

"Ororo!" Now Hank looked shocked, even disbelieving, but only for a few seconds. As his great mind delved into this new mystery he began to nod his head up and down as he worked out the possible physics.

"You say she keeps disappearing yet has spoken to you?"

"She called me by name but she looked scared, Hank. She wasn't the Ro we knew but . . . kind of bits and pieces of her and water and snow all mixed up."

"Water and snow?" he asked, incredulous.

"When I touched her my hand went right through her, came out half frozen."

"Interesting! That is quite an evolution if evolution it is."

"Evolution? You think Ro's evolved?"

"Logan, when Ororo died so unexpectedly there was no feasible reason for her death. Jean was correct in her analysis. She was in perfect health."

"I know she was dead. We buried her. "

"But you said her body is different, new?"

It took him a moment before he could respond. He remembered the empty casket. "Then Ro's really alive?"

"It would appear so. You'll have to show me where it is that you've seen her, tell me everything and I'll see what I can do to help ease her transition."

"Uh, Hank I don't want anyone to know just yet."

"You haven't mentioned this to anyone else?"

"I told Jean but she thought I was playing around," he said with a shrug.

"Certainly it's nothing new when one of us comes back to life and Jean, of all of us, should know it's quite possible."

Thereafter for many days Hank ran with Logan. Afterward he would retrace the path of their runs sniffing and feeling and exploring with instruments that Logan couldn't pronounce the names of. She never appeared when they ran and Hank found nothing out of the ordinary around the grounds.

"There's one thing," Logan said one morning after a fruitless run, "She came back right where she . . ."

"Hmm, where she died? That's intriguing."

Meaning he was still just as clueless, Logan thought.

"Perhaps we should try running over there more frequently. Let's have a look."

But once again there was nothing different, nothing to give Hank any idea of what he could do to aid Ororo. Hank thought to return later that night, the bewitching hour he called it, and he left Logan alone. But only for a while. Mist turned into fog and soon the grounds were obscured and Logan wasn't startled when he heard her this time.

"I remember . . . I remember the fun – everyone was playing . . . not me. My mind . . . shut down, I wasn't myself, couldn't control – Logan, what happened? Where did they go? What happened?"

Ororo was standing right beside him. She was just as he had always remembered her, flesh and blood, her brown skin smooth and bright, her eyes sparkling blue, full of life, and her mouth soft and welcoming, mauve colored lips turning up slightly at the corners when he grabbed her.

When her arms went around him he knew. His heart knew. Her touch, her smell, eternal sunshine and soft rain. Ororo. The woman he loved. She was as real as he.

"But how?" he asked as he held onto her.

"How?"

"How're you here, darlin' – alive?"

"Alive?"

"Do ya remember anything?"

"Remember? Remember what? Is there something I forgot?"

"You were . . . you were dead, darlin'!"

"Dead?" she gasped.

"You're – you died! I shoulda checked on you but . . ."

"I am not dead. I was gone. I know. Asleep. I woke and you were gone, everyone was gone. But I'm back now."

"But how? Where were you?"

"I was . . . I was . . . here . . . in the air . . . in the rain . . . and snow and wind. I think – no, I remember though I don't quite understand _how_ but I was one with everything – with the very elements. I . . . I tried to pull myself together but it was so . . . I couldn't . . . I didn't know how. But I am here now. I have come back – for you."

Those words pierced his heart. Her smile melted his soul.

"Ro." His burly arms squeezed her tight and he kissed her with a passion he'd almost forgotten. And in her arms he realized the desire he felt for Ororo was like nothing he'd ever known. It was then that he realized he had a wife.

When he stopped mid kiss Ororo looked at him, puzzled, her blue eyes now white and shining. She moved to kiss him again and he let her but only briefly.

"I gotta tell ya somethin'," he said.

"Tell me that you love me – that is all I want to hear."

The request startled him. Her whole manner, so free and full of love, startled him. Before they had never mentioned words like love and commitment. They'd taken from each other and given all but no words had ever been spoken between them of what it was that they felt for each other.

There would have been a time before her death that he would have been overjoyed for this but now he couldn't bring himself to speak the words she needed to hear. How many times had he told Jean that he loved her? Once when he'd proposed. Had that been it? But he had loved Jean. A long, long time ago. Only he had finally seen that desire and lust were not love. But now she was happy, no longer jealous though no less demanding and sometimes she wouldn't shut up. She didn't know that in his heart he kept a special place for Ororo.

"I don't know any easy way ta tell ya 'cept ta come out with it . . ."

"What do you . . . ?"

"Things changed after you . . . died."

"I did not die as you can see. I am here – alive!"

He took her by the shoulders. He looked at her, felt as if he too had come alive for the first time in years even while he was dying inside. He got up, moved a fair distance from her. Everything had changed with her death and then after the death of most of their teammates and the students, his child.

"You know how I feel about you, Ororo. You're probably the only woman who really knew me, knew me and accepted me . . . Damn, this is hard. Don't know how ta tell ya."

"Tell me what?" Ororo asked, standing now beside him and he had to blink it happened so quickly.

"How'd you do that?"

"What?"

"You know – one minute you were on the ground and the next you weren't."

It took her a second to comprehend and then she laughed. "It's difficult even for me to understand fully, Logan. I am . . . I _am_ the wind and the rain and snow – it is as if I am _all_ the very elements. Does that make sense? It's the only way I know to explain it."

"Second mutation . . ." he muttered.

"A mutation?"

"Hank was right I guess, just like him an' Emma an' Warren, the others, an' how Sage could . . ."

"And where are they? I must see them, it has been so long. How long have I been gone, Logan? It felt an age and yet only moments ago I watched all of you playing baseball and I listened to your conversations."

All he could do was stare at her. Her long white hair was streaming down her back, her eyes no longer white with desire but brilliant as the sky on a cloudless day. She was more than beautiful. There was majesty to her. Always regal, now she was – she was eternal, a true goddess.

"Logan?"

"Yeah, darlin."

"It is so good to see you."

"Same here. You were missed more than I could ever tell ya, darlin'."

The catch in his voice told her more than any words. She wanted to hold on to him, feel his body hard against her own that was so new and strange but she sensed she had said too much, much more than she had ever admitted to him before so she made no move, only admired him from aloft. He was as handsome and rugged as she remembered and the sight of him gave her boundless joy.

"You keep doing that," he said, his smile so very familiar and welcoming.

"I am! I barely noticed," she laughed as she floated downward. "I am still adjusting to this . . . body. It is mine but new. Perhaps because I have not been able to use it for so long. I cannot say."

"It's been a long time since . . ."

"Since I . . . died?"

He nodded.

"How long?"

"Over a year."

Now she paused, unable to think or speak or even react.

"But you're back, darlin' an' that's all that matters."

And once again Logan forgot Jean as he pulled Ororo to him. His kisses made her sigh, his arms around her gave her peace and he felt complete and happy again and his mind was made up. He would never give up Ororo. He would divorce Jean immediately.

Still, in the back of his mind he didn't know how he was going to explain to Jean that Ororo was back and was the reason he was leaving her or how to explain to Ororo that though he had planned to divorce Jean they had stayed together because of a child they'd lost. And would Jean attempt to kill Ororo again – was that even possible now? He would not risk her life again. And yet after her death and after the Sentinel attack he'd told himself if he ever found love again he'd never let it go, never waste a minute. With Ororo he had lost the woman that he loved without ever telling her that he loved her but he vowed to himself as he held her that he would never lose her again even if it meant taking Jean down.


	4. A Whisper on the Wind

**Secrets Still**

**Chapter Four – A Whisper on the Wind**

**A/N** – Thanks to dawnkind for making me clarify Logan's position in this story which is why the delay. Also thanks to 'guest', who is probably no longer reading this, I'm sorry the story feels disorganized. I was going for a story that was not quite lineal but more like bits and pieces here and there, somewhat like Secrets and I know that's not everyone's cup of tea. But I appreciate the feedback so thank you.

**-xox-**

Ororo's and Logan's hands instinctively linked as they started back to the school but as they approached Ororo's greenhouse her hand slipped from his. She faded, becoming mist drifting towards the decrepit building and then she was gone. Again. He cursed under his breath not sure if she was gone for a moment or forever. He fumbled with his keys, not knowing whether he should give her some time to accept the changes or barge in. He'd tried to keep the students on top of things for awhile, what few students they'd managed to gather to protect and teach, but they'd been flying by the seat of their pants having no real time or talent for growing things and eventually he had given up. He hoped she wouldn't be too disappointed at the sheer disarray of her beloved greenhouse.

After what felt like hours but was really only a few minutes there was still no sign of her and he began to panic. Maybe she wasn't coming back! Maybe seeing the greenhouse made her realize just how long she'd been dead. He felt as if she were as fragile as the wisp of wind she seemed to turn into without thought.

She wasn't inside. Only dusty pots and tools, a dirty sink and rust covered benches peeking out here and there where the grass and weeds had yet to override. He noticed a window, broken and half raised, and he sighed. He should have watched over it better. A fierce wind blew in, cold enough to cause him to shiver. But when he walked to the back to close it there was no wind coming from the window and his fear turned to hope.

"Ororo?" he called.

Dust swirled, cobwebs danced and suddenly she appeared.

"Damn. It's gonna take time ta get used to that!" he exclaimed.

"What happened here?" she asked.

"I – we couldn't keep it the way you had, Ro so we decided to lock it up."

Her slow nod matched her woeful expression.

"Has it been so long?"

He wanted to protect her and he instinctively pulled her close and held onto her tight. He had no way of making sense of any of this but his embrace was something tangible for her and for him as well. They needed that, something solid, something they could both understand after all this time.

"Don't let me go," she breathed.

The need in her voice startled him. Ororo of old was strong, independent, and she never gave voice to emotional needs like this. Her touch, her look, had always been self assured, she had never once verbalized such a need. Had her 'death' changed her so much then?

The sound of footsteps on the path made them both jump.

"Who's in here?" Jean called.

"It's us – me and Ro," Logan replied but even as he spoke Ororo disappeared in his arms.

"Logan?" Jean came up to him looking around curiously. "I was just going in and saw the door was open, what are you doing?"

"We – she was just here."

"She?"

"Ororo."

"Ororo?"

"Yeah."

"Oh." She flashed a tight smile before retracing her steps and Logan didn't call her back. She hadn't understood, that was clear, but how to explain everything he didn't know.

"Ro?" he called and prayed she'd reappear.

It was no longer cold in the greenhouse but warm, a gentle wind blowing. He leaned into the breeze feeling something he hadn't felt since Ororo had died – contentment.

**-xox-**

Seeing Logan like that, seemingly lost in a world of his own was something Jean had never gotten used to. She had tried to make their marriage work but sometimes it felt as if Ororo were in bed with them. Lord knew she and Ororo had been closer than sisters but when Logan had fallen for Ororo and she'd discovered she was pregnant Jean had made sure the situation was controlled. There were regrets of course, she hadn't wanted to kill Ororo but she justified her actions to herself. It had been a crime of passion. Logan flaunting his love for Ororo right in her face, in front of everyone like that – how was she supposed to react? Knowing Logan still thought of Ororo even now angered her. She wished he would put the past in the past where it belonged and let them live their lives.

That was exactly what she'd done. To have clung to the memory of Scott would have killed her. But then she had more experience in these matters. Scott hadn't died just once. In fact, even now she held a tiny smidgen of hope that he would magically appear before her. But their link had been severed and so strongly and so severely that she knew he would never return. How to make Logan realize this about Ororo?

"Jean."

She turned at the sound of her name – saw nothing. The voice was slightly familiar but faint enough to cause her to doubt, just a whisper on the wind. She obviously needed some coffee.

"Jean."

There it was again. Soft, moaning, like wind in a tunnel. One of the children had to be playing a joke.

"Mmm," she sighed after the first taste of the strong coffee she'd brewed. It was just what she'd needed.

"Jean."

Jean screamed, her coffee cup crashed to the floor and shattered, the hot liquid splattering all over her pants.

"No! You can't be alive!" she cried. "You were dead! I killed you that day! I willed you to die! It wasn't my fault, I didn't want to, but you . . . you deserved it!"

There was no response and truly Jean thought she was seeing a ghost for before her was a woman whom she'd killed over a year ago. Or at least she looked like her old friend except – except she wasn't real. Her skin was transparent, fading back and forth into mist and then she was gone.

**-xox-**

Cigar smoke was always a dead give away to Logan's whereabouts. The smoke was whirling upwards, the stench galling yet reassuring. Logan was at the lake and Ororo settled down beside him, sending the noxious fumes off on a gentle breeze.

"So have you and Jean made up?" she asked, a smile playing over her face because the sight of Logan, cigar or no, made her so very happy.

"No," he replied, thankful she was back.

Blunt and to the point. Had it been anyone else they would have taken that as a clear sign to go away but Ororo merely laughed her quiet laugh and placed a hand over his one free hand. He stubbed out the cigar and pocketed it then covered her hand, still stunned to see her alive, to feel her flesh against his. How was he supposed to not want this woman?

Jean had searched him out earlier claiming to have seen Ororo, demanding to know why he hadn't told her, accusing him of seeing Ororo behind her back. It had been a long, ugly argument with accusations that were so true he'd felt she'd read his mind, an unforgivable act, something she had promised never to do again when she'd laid down her rules when their daughter was born. He had walked out, gone to the lake, tried to calm down.

Ororo was still finding it hard to fully materialize beside Logan. Jean's earlier confession had rocked her. She'd been shocked at first, couldn't believe that Jean had tried to kill her. She'd refused to believe it. Could Jean hate her that much? Her emotions were in such turmoil she hadn't been able to maintain her corporeal form. To stay human required a lot of concentration and her anger and guilt and sadness had drained her. Still, it had been Logan's pain that had drawn her to the boathouse and as spirit and air she had overheard their argument.

Not willing to eavesdrop yet held there by the vehement emotions and the revelations – Jean accusing him of adultery, Logan's anger sharp and vicious as he accused her of murdering Ororo and their daughter, saying she should have been with the little girl when they'd been attacked. Ororo was boggled. They'd had a child? But then Hank had come in, stepping between them, urging them to take a few minutes to calm down and only when he began questioning them about Ororo did she, her presence, her soul? – drift away.

None of them were sure how she'd come to be again. Hank had ideas but without contact with Ororo he could only speculate. That she had appeared to Jean made him believe she would eventually appear to them all in some form they could relate to but he could only wait. They all waited.

Something called to Ororo. If asked to describe it she would say it was longing. An emptiness, a need unfulfilled, something lodged deep within Logan drew her. Years had felt like seconds to her and seconds like years. She could appear any where she chose in a heartbeat but she'd had no physicality. But always this longing within Logan drew her back. She had tried so hard to become flesh again, for him, but it was of no use now if he and Jean were still together.

"Jean is sorry, surely you know that. She did not know what to think when I appeared out of – out of nothing I suppose."

"She never thinks, just jumps to conclusions," Logan said, wondering how Ororo knew they'd had a fight. She looked vaguely amused which irritated him yet he knew she meant well which nearly negated the irritation.

"You cannot expect me to stand by and watch something so minor destroy your happiness."

"Happiness?" Logan asked, his eyes narrowed, his brows furrowed, and he was suddenly furious.

"Of course," Ororo said though his look took her aback slightly. "You always wanted Jean and she obviously would kill to keep you . . ."

"You mean as long as Scotty's stayin' dead she wants me."

Ororo had been startled when she had heard those exact words from Logan earlier when they'd argued.

"Scott's dead, that's the only reason you're with me, that an' keepin' up your perfect image!" he'd shouted. And Jean had laughed, called him half the man Scott was. To Ororo's surprise Logan had responded brutally, "And you wonder why I don't want to fuck you" before he'd walked away.

Ororo was totally confused but she knew now was not the time to question Logan. She wanted to ease his pain, to make things right not make them worse for she accepted some part in their quarrel.

"You say that as if it is her fault that Scott's death was the only way she could be with you, Logan but so what if it was? You are no child. She loved Scott very much. You knew that. She chose to move on and you were her choice. You should be happy."

He was surprised at the anger in her voice. Surprised that she seemed to have forgotten that she'd told him she loved him just that morning. He saw he'd made a mistake, that he should have told her everything right from the start. It was obvious Jean had told her they were still together.

"Did you not love Mariko as she loved Scott; with a love that would have lasted forever had she lived?"

Was that resentment he detected in her voice?

"M'iko's been dead a long time," he said.

"And so has Scott."

"Drop in the bucket compared to M'iko."

"You have to be right in this matter don't you?"

As she stood he caught his breath and bit back another retort. He didn't want her to go, to vanish.

"Look, Ororo, It's only been a few months since our little girl died. Maybe I shoulda divorced her the next day but truth is that just wasn't on my mind. We weren't together but we're still married, probably outta habit more 'n anything but I _am_ divorcing her ass, she's got nothin' ta hold over my head this time. But I won't lie, I wish she did have something if it meant my baby girl could still be alive. She isn't though, she ain't comin' back like you or Scott." His voice choked.

Ororo's anger cooled.

"I stay at my cabin an' Jean's at the boathouse," Logan continued. "She took the kid's death hard, maybe harder 'n me. I blamed her. She was here when they attacked, I wasn't. I know I shouldn't blame her but our baby shoulda been her priority. Deep down I know it's not her fault an' all this, the crap with her, it's really all my fault. If I'd just been stronger an' left you alone an' if I'd just tried to get along with her an' stayed home instead of always goin' off somewhere maybe my little girl would still be here. I might as well have killed her for not being here just like it's my fault you died."

"That's not true, Logan and you know it. We all made mistakes, Jean will pay for hers rest assured, but you, Logan, the Logan I remember is a bigger man than this. I expect more from you than this pouting 'woe is me' attitude of yours. I am truly sorry for your loss but you are still married to her, habit or not, and I am utterly disappointed in you for if you've chosen to remain with her then your behavior is abominable."

Her words were bitter and cut deep. He tried to find words, found none, but she was already gone, only a whisper of her scent left, clean and fresh like dew and sunshine.

He waited a long time for her to come back, scared that she wouldn't. Everything was turned upside down now. With her death he'd found life with the birth of his child. With the death of his child he'd slowly been dying but now with Ororo's rebirth he too had a chance at rebirth. If she would only stay. If she could get over her anger and if she would only let him leave Jean and be with her. Would she?

He reluctantly headed to the boathouse not knowing what would happen just knowing he had to end things with Jean because life with her had been a slow death despite their beautiful little girl. He had hated living in the boathouse. It was where Scott and Jean had lived. But Jean had thought it was a wonderful surprise for him, fixing the place up in rustic patterns and furniture. It hadn't been. He had been perfectly content living in his cabin. Newlyweds for only two months when she redid the boathouse she'd already started taking over his life. That wasn't what he'd expected, it wasn't what he'd wanted.

Once upon a time he would have gladly moved into Mariko's home and lived her life but she had been with no other man. How Jean could think he would want to live in the same place Scott had made love to her he couldn't understand. He didn't want to try to understand because anyone with common sense would have known how inappropriate it was to expect such a thing of him. Anyone but Jean, the woman he'd thought was the woman of his dreams when he'd first met her.

It was depressing, facing Jean to tell her what? He was leaving her for a ghost? Would Ororo even come back? She said she'd come back for him. Would she stay now that she knew about him and Jean? Would she balk at the thought of him divorcing Jean like she had before? Would she let them have a life together? Was he wrong to want a life with Ororo? Yes he was wrong to have not seen it was Ororo that he loved all along but he'd been blind. He was just a man, not perfect, not even as honor bound as he would like. Could Ororo accept that? Would she come back? It was this thought that kept coming back to him. And what if she didn't come back? What then?

Making his way to the boathouse, lost in these thoughts, he was surprised there was a trace of Ororo's faint but unique scent. He'd noticed when she vanished it was without trace as if she'd never existed but this new change made him wonder if she was becoming more and more the real flesh and blood Ororo he'd held in his arms and kissed. He wanted that but was beginning to feel it wasn't going to happen. Ororo would do the honorable thing like before and bow out. He knew her too well to expect otherwise.

When he arrived at the boathouse he was no longer feeling the welter of emotions that had been with him since Ororo appeared that morning. He whistled quietly, relaxed, as if a burden had been lifted from his heart. Come what may it was over between him and Jean.

"Logan . . ." Jean stopped when she saw he wasn't going to look at her and guessed he wasn't speaking to her either. She panicked – had Ororo confirmed what she'd done?

"I'm packin' up the things you put in the attic that weren't nice enough for your little dream house," he said, pausing to gauge her reaction.

Her sudden surge of fear surprised him. But he didn't care about anything Jean did or felt now. His mind was made up just as it had been the day Ororo had died. But remembering that day, what Jean had done, would she try something like that again? Unsure and afraid for Ororo suddenly he started up the stairs. He needed time to plan, to make sure Ororo would be safe.

"What was that about?" Jean asked herself after Logan was gone.

"I wonder too," Ororo confessed as she materialized.

"Ororo! Why are you doing this? Why are you here? Why can't you leave me the hell alone?" Jean wailed, involuntarily taking a few steps back.

"I suppose I should leave you both alone," Ororo spoke calmly.

"Oh, don't worry about Logan and me! We might have a few hiccups but we're fine. Besides, making up is so much fun and let me tell you, Ro he wasn't kidding when he said he was the best he is at what he does. But you'll never know will you?"

Ororo saw that Jean was desperate and she couldn't help but smile.

"Jean, Logan and I were lovers long before he married you. I would have thought you were aware of that."

"You're lying! Logan loved me before you started chasing him!"

"I've no reason to lie. What Logan and I had was . . . fleeting perhaps, passionate, unnameable but it was very real. I suspect neither of us realized how real it was. Not until it was too late unfortunately. I am sorry for that, Jean. Neither he nor I meant to hurt you."

"Well you see I'm still married to him and you – you're nothing – nothing at all, just a . . . just a ghost of what you were . . . some insignificant, malevolent spirit that I swear I will nullify if you try anything with my husband."

"You tried to kill me once and I am still here. I am . . . different now. You will not be able to kill me a second time, Jean. But I, _I_ can kill _you_."

Jean took another step back as a loud clap of thunder seemed to shake the house. And then she began to choke. The room was very still and very cold as Ororo deftly withdrew all air from the room. But before Ororo could act further Jean lashed back with her telekinesis and telepathy. Only she found there was nothing to latch hold of. Just as suddenly the room returned to normal and Jean gratefully gasped in air. She should have been afraid knowing that she was being toyed with, that she was no match for this new Ororo, that she was going to die but she also knew she deserved to die.

"What are you waiting for? Just kill me," Jean said and closed her eyes, accepting her fate.

Ororo did not speak. She was remembering a time, a long ago Christmas, when Logan was unsure of just what it was he was best at, and she was leaving the team asking him to remain. They had slipped away from the others, made love – actually _made_ love. She'd been shaken by the depth of feeling. But afterward all they had to show for it was a still, a snapshot. She'd kept that picture for a long time, her arms wrapped around him as he stood in front of her, silly Santa caps snug on their heads. It was a time when they both were just beginning to realize there was something between them but they'd never acknowledged it, not then, not even when he'd come to her when she was at death's door.

She loved Logan but he had married a fantasy. Was he capable of truly leaving Jean? Would killing Jean remove those old feelings or would her death elevate his feelings for her? She saw that if she gave in to her desire for revenge that Jean would be a ghost between them, like she was between Logan and Jean. And how could anyone be happy if there was always the ghost of your lost love still in your heart? And that was her answer.

"You're . . . you're not going to kill me are you, Ororo?" Jean spoke quietly. "I-I'd forgotten how good you were. Maybe I forgot that when _I_ stopped being good. I should be sorry for what I did to you. I really should but you were trying to steal my husband. I was pregnant and you had Kurt, I know he was falling for you – you could have chosen him but instead you went after Logan. You knew he'd loved me from day one. You knew that. We were married and you blatantly threw your relationship in my face."

"No. No, Jean I never tried to steal Logan nor did I attempt to flaunt our attraction. I tried to send him back to _you._ It is not always easy to give up what you want most in the world. I was . . . weak. But we never betrayed you as you believe. Yes we should have stopped seeing each other when we saw what we had was more than friendship. I told him I would have no part in a divorce, that I would have nothing to do with him.

"I never wanted to hurt you. And yet you tried your best to kill me. I should be dead, as dead as I feel you should be. Who are you to decide who lives or dies? And yet I would seek to do the very same thing. I once loved you, Jean, as a sister, a friend, a team mate. I am sorry for the part I have played in turning you into someone I no longer recognize. I will not kill you, I release you instead."

"Release me? Release me from what? My guilt? My horrible life since you ruined it? My husband? Release me? What right have you to meddle in my life? You're nothing, I can't even sense anything from you, no brain waves, nothing! You might as well be dead. Logan can't love a ghost," Jean shouted.

"I am not a ghost although I may not be of flesh and blood always," Ororo said. "Can you not just be thankful? I was going to kill you, Jean. But I will not. Perhaps what you did to me has been a blessing for I now know that I can wait for Logan as he will wait for me. Another year, a decade, centuries, eons, I will be here when he is free.

"I know he loves me and not you. He is outside this room even now, trying to get in but I have . . . I have taken us out of time for time has no meaning to me. He is afraid. Logan, the man who seldom knows fear, believes you will kill me as you tried before. I believe he would leave you but for that fear."

"Logan, help me!" Jean cried out but there was no response. "Oh, what do you want? Why can't you go back . . .?" Jean's words died on her tongue as she thought of the afterlife and immediately thought of Scott. "Tell me, were you alone?" she suddenly demanded.

"Alone?"

"You wouldn't be in the white hot room – where were you? Do you remember anything?"

"I was . . . everywhere," Ororo murmured.

"Did you see anyone else?"

She means Scott, Ororo thought as she realized her friend was hoping Scott was somehow still alive.

"Did you see Scott? Is he there? Was he with you? Can you talk to him, tell him to come back? Please tell me! You owe me that much! No, don't go! Don't leave without telling me about Scott! Please!"

Ororo was appalled. And bitter. She fought for control and mist turned again into bones and sinew, rain and snow and she smiled at the woman who had killed her.

"Scott and I are together, Jean. Where we are, we are a couple. He loves me. And now you can let him go as he has let you go, as I have let Logan go. I will take good care of Scott. He's happy with me." Ororo smiled at her lie giving Jean no time to question or act, she simply disappeared.

When Logan had heard thunder, he'd raced back downstairs fearing for Ororo's life. He'd heard her voice, caught her scent, but the door wouldn't budge. He'd banged on it, tried knocking it down, tried cutting it down but it was as if it were there but not there, somehow suspended in some other dimension. He'd gone outside, tried the windows, the walls but nothing moved under his efforts.

When he'd heard a scream he immediately realized it wasn't Ororo. Shortly afterward he thought Jean must have thrown something with her telekinesis but what he'd actually heard was her body falling to the floor as she collapsed. And when the door knob turned under his hand and the door opened he saw Jean curled in the fetal position and sobbing in true misery. Relief flooded over him. Ororo was alive then which meant Jean had no power over her. He shut the door and went in search of Ororo. He didn't know that a guilt ridden Ororo had sought out Hank who nearly fainted from shock and excitement at the sight of her.

**-xox-**

"What are we going to do about the ghost in our marriage?" Jean asked the next day when Logan finally answered his door. After a long, fruitless wait the night before he'd finally fallen asleep on the dew covered grass. And at dawn he had finally gone back to his cabin.

"If you're talking about Ororo why don't ya just say so?"

"I loved her, Logan, like a sister, but you betrayed me with her!" Her words were laced with fury but Logan made no reply. "Do you still want her?"

"You already know that, didn't you read my mind?"

"I did not, I wouldn't! You know I wouldn't, not any more. I thought we were okay, that you'd stopped thinking about her."

"Like you've stopped thinkin' about Slim?"

She pressed her lips together, anger flushing her face.

"That's different. Scott was my first love, my first husband!"

"Then what makes you think there's a ghost between us? Guilty conscious?"

"Guilty? Why should I feel guilty when I've loved Scott almost from the moment I saw him? But you – what are _you_ thinking? You never tell me when I ask . . ."

"Why should I? If you can't figure it out by now then it's none of your business and if it was important you'd already know an' you'd lie just like you did about killin' Ro."

"But I don't know what's going on with you! I haven't read your mind. I've stuck to our bargain. But you've been seeing Ororo behind my back. You couldn't even be man enough to just come out and tell me the truth. You act as if ever since you told me – no, even before you told me about Ororo – you've been angry all the time. We hardly even had sex before all this and if it weren't for in vitro before you changed I would never have gotten pregnant!"

"You want sex is that it?"

"Yes. No. Yes, of course but – oh, you know what I mean!"

He moved away from the door, sat down on a beaten up couch but when she sat down beside him he got up.

"We should never have gotten married, never done that in vitro stuff, an' never stayed married after . . . Well, you know it and I know it."

"I don't. You don't either, Logan! We were in . . ."

"What? You were gonna say we were in love but ya couldn't. Because you know we weren't. We were trying too hard. I had all these expectations, thought you were perfect but you're just a typical woman, nothing wrong with that, but you're not my kind of woman. You're too needy, too jealous. I messed up with Ro, all those years I wasted . . ."

"You want to be with her."

His gaze held hers, steady and determined, blue eyes full of emotion she had never seen in them before.

"And I'm supposed to bow out gracefully and let a ghost have you?"

"She's real."

"I'm not giving that woman my husband no matter what, do you hear me?"

"I can't stay with you Jean. I've tried but with Ro back all I can see is that we made a mistake and the only way to fix it is to call it quits."

"You want a divorce?"

A nod of his shaggy head made her stomach lurch in dread. Another failed marriage. And Ororo was with Scott apparently, in whatever afterlife Jean had caused her to end up in. Her first love was really gone, lost to her, and so soon would Logan – both in love with Ororo. She felt so bereft and alone. How could Scott do that to her?

"I hate you!" she snarled angrily.

Turning he walked out into the cool morning. He could hear her crying, loud deep sobs that told him he'd hurt her when all he'd wanted was a clean break. She didn't love him, not like she loved Scott. Why did she insist on continuing the facade?

"You two seem to belong together, here, in this present."

The voice – Ororo's voice – caught him unawares. She was beside him outside on the porch, her flesh once again a mixture of skin and so many elements that he could barely see her features, a rushing swirl of life that had taken human shape.

"We're getting a divorce, Ro."

"You cannot," she whispered. "Oh, Logan how stupid and blind you are – I am! You cannot desert your wife now. She is pregnant again."

"What? Jean ain't pregnant, no way!"

"But she is. Hank has confirmed that the procedure you both asked for did indeed work. I cannot be the cause of your desertion, Logan. I cannot stay."

"What? I didn't ask Hank – wait! No, Ro, don't do this again, not when we got a chance – we can work this out I know we . . . !" he shouted but his desperate plea was cut short as she dissolved before his eyes.

"I am sorry, so sorry." He heard her say, her voice faint, dissolving like her. And suddenly rain, snow, sleet, hail burst forth, a mini storm as if bathing him in a final embrace then she was gone.

Logan heard Jean's laughter. She was standing in the doorway smiling through her tears. Logan understood why. Ororo meant not to come back. Furious, panicked, he jumped off the porch and started running. He searched the greenhouse and looked all over the grounds but she was nowhere.

"Jean, where is she?"

"Huh?"

"Where is she? Where'd Ororo go? Do your telepathy thing – find her!" Logan demanded, grabbing Jean from behind after he'd tracked her down later that day in the school's kitchen.

"Ororo's gone for good?"

"Just find her!"

"Logan even if I wanted to find her I don't know how. There's never been anything to connect to since she came back. She was just a ghost, that's all."

"I gotta find her, Jean."

"That's too damn bad for you! I'm glad she's gone and I hope she never comes back. I can't believe you're asking me to help you find my replacement. I'm tired of this and I'm sick to death of you!"

"Are you pregnant?"

"What?"

"Ro said Hank told her you're pregnant. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I'm going to have an abortion you son of a bitch! Do you think I want to use a baby to make you stay with me now? I'm not that desperate anymore."

"Then why'd you get pregnant without telling me? Is it even mine?"

Jean slapped him. "Is it yours? How dare you? I'm not the one sneaking around! Yes it's your sperm but the baby will never be yours, ever!"

"Look, calm down, Jean. I'm always gonna take care of my kid. You know that but I gotta stand by Roro too. She needs me."

"The baby and I need you too, _if _I keep it."

"I know that. And you _will_ keep my kid, Jean. You know you got all the cards just like last time but I'll gut you myself if you get an abortion behind my back. It don't make sense you wantin' another kid an' sayin' you're gonna just get rid of it. Why didn't you tell me you wanted another kid?"

"For what? So you could tell Hank no? And why wouldn't I want another child to . . ."

"To replace our little girl?"

"Not a replacement. I just want some happiness. But I knew that was too much to ask of you. You would've said no. All I want from you now is for you to just stop looking for Ororo and try to make this work. Can't you try?"

"I ain't gonna leave you, either of you," he said, defeated.

"Oh, Logan. You already have."

She saw clearly now that he would always love Ororo just as she would always love Scott. She had no need to read his mind for it was plainly on his face. Logan had once loved her with a love she had feared, now she was nothing to him and that hurt. She wanted to hurt him as he'd hurt her. He'd known she would always love Scott, she'd been honest with him from the beginning. He'd basically tricked her into marriage, gotten her drunk in Vegas, but she'd vowed to make their marriage work no matter what. The man standing before her made her sick but he didn't deserve to be happy with Ororo.

"Ororo told me she's with Scott now," she said, "So that ought to make you feel better if she's really gone, at least she's not alone. Now I have to finish dinner." She turned her back to him, concentrating on the stew she was making.

He didn't bother her again and she was too tired to wonder where he was or what he was doing. He was lost to her. No matter that she had taken matters into her own hands to eliminate her competition all those years ago, slowly taking control over Ororo's mind, forcing her to shut down, convincing her to accept her death, as subtly as the snake in the Garden of Eden influencing Eve. Jean smiled grimly at the memory. Many times after she'd killed Ororo she'd tried to regret what she'd done in a moment of anger, of weakness, but no sorrow came. She wasn't proud of what she'd done, forcing her rival to expire, but it had been necessary and she'd do it again if that was possible. But Ororo's brain wasn't anything Jean could recognize. It was obvious that Ororo was more phantom than real and Logan just needed to accept that.

Jean smiled. Logan would stand by his word. He said he'd never leave her if she was pregnant and Ororo couldn't compete with that. So maybe she had won after all. And Ororo wasn't really dead per se which meant she wasn't the callous murderer they'd both thought she was. Best of all she'd finally have the family she'd longed for.

That night Jean slept fitfully but when she woke she felt more alone than ever. It would be this way every morning even with another child, she knew this. Logan had refused to sleep with her and she knew he wasn't going to change now. They'd pretended to live together so no one talked and their little girl had both of them all day till her bedtime but that wasn't a marriage. She longed to be loved, to have the perfect family that most people wanted. She'd thought she'd have that with a man who loved her more than than life itself. She'd been so wrong. His love had died so fast. What kind of love was that? Why had he led her on all those years? Why hadn't he just married Ororo?

Those questions would never be answered so she did something she had vowed never to do again, she searched for Logan telepathically. When she found him she surreptitiously dipped into his thoughts. But where she had expected lust and pornographic thoughts of Ororo she found only a deep, sorrowful yearning filling his entire being. She could see him in her minds eyes, in the woods – had he been running? Naked? She was sure of that but why? And then she was pushed from his mind with an angry aggressiveness that caught her off guard. She knew she'd have a pounding headache all morning if not all day. And she knew Logan would never forgive her.

There was no way she could tell without intruding into his thoughts that Logan would indeed forgive her and that he would resolutely continue their pretend life together for their child's sake. Ororo was not coming back. He knew it with certainty now. He could feel it in the wind, the very air around him. There was something missing, something integral, something he could not articulate. There was no feeling of her presence, no soft scent of sunshine and rain floating nearby. That was as close as he could come to expressing what was missing. She had left him. Why? Because she didn't love him enough to trust him? Didn't love him enough to wait . . . ?

"Wait for what?" he murmured to himself yet knowing how fruitless that wait would be. "I couldn't walk out on Jean and my kid."

A voice came to him on the wind – "I know this, Logan." Her scent was there briefly – wonderfully. The same scent and warmth that had sheltered him through a long night of rage and desperation, his feral rage let loose.

"Ro!" He looked around wildly trying to find her, but there was nothing there. "Ro, don't do this! We can work this out!" he pleaded.

But there was no response, no scent, no hint of her, nothing at all.

"Ororo, darlin' please don't do this."

Nothing, not even the gentlest whisper of wind. No breeze, no warmth, just emptiness.

"Please don't leave me," he whispered, now on his knees. "Please don't go, Ororo!"

Did he imagine it? The soothing scent of sun and rain and earth – Ororo as she was before, her aroma so natural and unique, Ororo as she was now, completely changed yet as fresh and soothing as always and it was not just a whiff but there all around him? The air, suddenly warm even caressing?

"I don't love her, I love you, Ororo – just was too stupid to see that back then," he said, his voice so forlorn it tore at Ororo's soul.

"Thank you, Logan but I cannot stay," Ororo whispered in his ear, her hand gentle on his face.

Only for an instant was she there and then she was gone taking his confession to treasure for eternity as she, nothing but a whisper on the wind, became one with the elements.


	5. True Love

**Secrets Still – Reunited**

**Chapter Four – True Love**

**A/N - **Please excuse the mistakes in the previous chapter and any in this chapter. I should have gone over both a final time before posting but it gets so hard after proofing and adding more stuff. I have made corrections for the previous chapter though. Boogled was meant to be boggled, Nienna - thanks! :D

**-xox-**

Jean silently hoped Ororo would stay away, let them live their lives, for though Ororo could become as if human she was nothing remotely human. There was nothing there for Jean to manipulate, no thoughts, nothing to read on the astral plane, just nothingness. It was as if Ororo simply did not exist. But Jean knew Ororo was very real. She was more than human. She was a force, not unlike the Phoenix. The thought scared her. If she was like the Phoenix she would come again.

But she did not come again. A year passed and another and another, in fact, so many years passed that eventually Jean and Logan saw she would not return. They remained man and wife and never mentioned Ororo. Jean thought, hoped, that Ororo had realized Logan had married the woman he had always loved and that she was finished with her husband. She wished she could be glad for Scott but she didn't want him to be happy if it meant he was with Ororo. Jealousy, anger, and helplessness burned within her whenever she thought of Ororo and Scott together. She tried to never think about them. But every day she did. Every day she suffered until she could will the torturous thoughts away.

Logan, unsure of what had happened, only knew that Ororo had faded into the elements and disappeared completely leaving not even the tiniest hint of scent behind. There was nothing he could do to bring her back and his desperation had failed to move Jean to help him. He'd never believed Jean's taunt that Ororo and Scott were together believing either it was another of Jean's lies or Ororo had been messing with his wife. He guessed it was the latter and every now and then he'd chuckle over the thought, that Jean was certain Scott and Ororo were together. He knew that would be bothering her every single day and somehow it made losing Ororo a little easier knowing that they shared this little secret. But it was still hard to bear. He'd never stopped loving Ororo but he committed himself to his family. He tried to be happy with Jean and his children – having what he'd always wanted – he tried with all his might.

Decades came and went. Jean and Logan's twins, a boy – James, and a girl, Rose – were in college now. James, who'd been a co-op with Matt Murdock's firm since one of his interests was law, was on a Rhodes scholarship and Rose was close to home at Empire Sate. Logan and Jean were still together. They'd never found happiness, too many ghosts between them. Things had never been the same after Ororo left but they had been able to make things work for their children.

The love that had bound them together in the beginning had been revealed for what it truly was – lust, and little respect. Any love had died with Ororo's death. Jean tried to tell herself sex wasn't Logan's sole way of showing his love but she desperately wished it were. In the past she'd always told herself sex _was_ his way of showing his love since he would never tell her that he loved her. But then he'd finally stopped accommodating her whenever she'd ask him to make love to her. He'd stopped right before she'd insisted on trying in vitro so they could start a family.

Maybe the thought of having a family with her had been the final straw for him. She could admit now that she'd always held their first daughter as a type of hostage to make Logan comply to her wishes. But sex hadn't been negotiable. He'd called her bluff when she told him normal martial relations had to start again or she'd take their daughter and leave. He'd told her he'd kill her and take the child and bluntly asked why she thought someone who had murdered a team mate should raise the kid anyway. Jean had settled for their separate lives but, like then, she still missed the sex most of all. After the twins started grade school she finally told him she would look elsewhere and he had nonchalantly told her he could care less what she did. What he did and with whom she didn't know, didn't want to.

She felt old, looked old. She was thinking about botox injections but hesitated, not wanting to nip and tuck like a narcissist. She was supposed to be better than that and what would the kids think? But doing nothing left her feeling old and helpless. It wasn't that she didn't look good despite having gained fifteen extra pounds she couldn't shed no matter how many diets she'd gone on, and having to dye her hair – men no longer looked twice at her. That was depressing.

Logan was still in the cabin but didn't try to hide it from anyone after the twins left for college. Jean never knew where he was or what he was doing. The only good things in her life besides the children were knowing that she hadn't exactly killed her best friend and that Ororo, her competition, was gone forever. Or so she believed.

Hank was even now asking Ororo a series of methodical questions as he worked on some new discovery about her. Sometimes she visited him although never quite whole. He told her of Jean's sadness, of Logan's silence.

"But they are happy are they not?" she would always ask, wanting this with all her heart.

A shrug. Hank knew they were as happy as any married couple could hope to be with a ghost always between them though not as happy as he expected Jean and said ghost would have been. He knew she mourned Scott even now.

"Time is so slow."

Had he heard her right? Her voice was so quiet, almost part of the very air. It gave him chills to hear it when the timbre reached this air light pitch. Ororo fascinated him. She had made him promise not to tell anyone that she came to him and he had kept his word despite Logan's many attempts to get him to search for her. Logan's abject misery, his murmured accusations against his wife, it was too confusing, and frustrating for Hank. He didn't want to believe Logan. He didn't want to know the truth. The memory of the night he and Logan had dug up Ororo's coffin still made him shudder. He didn't know Jean had placed a permanent block on his mind when it came to that beautiful autumn day when Ororo died in seemingly peace. He only knew that Ororo had evolved and he longed to discover how and why.

Hank could admit that he'd become a little jealous and therefore more inclined to consider Logan's past rantings quite suspect. But Logan never bothered him any more. It had taken a good decade for him to stop asking Hank to look into Ororo's evolution and try to find her. Hank had been secretly glad when Logan stopped coming by the lab because Ororo would stop visiting him right before Logan's visits and a long time after. That utterly fascinated him too. How could she know when Logan was in one of those moods, about to come and ask him to look into Ororo's situation? How did she remove herself so completely with no trace of odor, no trail left for him or Logan to detect?

And then when he'd discovered she had some control over time he was sure that was when he'd fallen in love with her. He would never tell her. He himself knew falling in love with Ororo because of the evolution her mutation had caused was borderline bizarre if not downright insane. He often longed to be with her but not in the physical way lovers might but to touch her hand, feel the currents of water and snow surging through her, hear her airy laughter in his ear, and hug her close to see what it felt like to hold onto wisps of elements. And yet in her ethereal form she thoroughly satisfied his scientific dreams. Like now as he watched currents of water stream through snow and hail, a shape of a human but nothing else visible. He loved this, her, their little relationship, keeping her secret, something only they shared.

He had never married. He had mutated several more times, nothing, in his opinion, appealing to any woman. Ororo had laughed and scratched him behind the ears the way he loved when he'd first told her this and maybe it was that day Hank had truly come to love her. She had disputed his argument, kissed him gently on the cheek and after much scolding had returned to what she was most comfortable being – nothing and everything, one with the elements. But she had come back more frequently after that.

The first time she'd visited him was after he'd witnessed a particular nasty fight between Jean who was huge with child, and a furious, drunken Logan. He'd separated them, wondering why they couldn't be happy with twins on the way. Her second visit had come soon after the twins were born. When he'd asked her why she had decided to come back she'd told him longing had called her. Logan was consumed with guilt – she could feel it although she did not tell Hank this. And there was more, Logan missed her deeply. She couldn't tell Hank her guilt had brought her back as well. She had hoped to comfort Logan and perhaps the smile on his grim face when she had hugged him while he slept, her arms of wind and nothing solid, did help him for she did not find the need to return for many years later.

When she came back again it was because the longing had been replaced with joy. His children, she saw, were starting preschool. He was so proud of them and because he was so was she. It gave her joy to watch over them secretly. When little Jimmy fell from a tree at the age of six it was she who had caught him, a gust of wind that righted him. And when Jimmy had tried to explain what had happened Jean was sure his mutant powers had kicked in despite his age and Hank's assurances that they had not. Only Logan had a glimmer of an idea for Jimmy had smelled of sunflowers and the salty ocean as if a wind from far off had come to his aid. But he could never be sure and he didn't mention it to any one.

Always there for them Ororo aided them as best she could. Jean's tears did not call to her but Logan's turbulent emotions always would as did the twin's. Rose had no powers yet embraced in a warm wind she felt as if she could fly and did. She only told Jimmy who told her it was the same thing that had saved him. And so they came to know her somewhat in their mad escapades, taking more after their father than sensible Jean. And Ororo was finally able to forgive Jean for she saw Jean was trying to be a good wife and a good mother to Logan's beloved children. She hoped Jean in turn did not resent her still but she had no way of knowing without making her presence known.

"Who ya talkin' to, Hank?"

James, tall like Jean but built like Logan and almost the splitting image of his father but with rusty brown hair and green eyes, had entered the room almost soundlessly like his father had taught him.

Hank was very still for a moment and then he chuckled and said, "Just a whisper on the wind," as he looked up from his experiment to find Ororo gone.

Logan came in behind the young man but he hadn't taken two steps before he stopped. His son, so used to the comforting warm fragrant air that seemed to tend to him and his sister, simply stepped into the embrace and passed on to Hank with a youthful grin.

"You're getting old, Unc," he laughed.

"And so are you my strapping lad, so are you," Hank retorted, glancing briefly at Logan before going back to his work.

James, who liked to be called Jim now, sat down to watch. Unlike his father he had a scientific bent perhaps from spending so much time with Hank. Logan had intended to go work out and not follow his son into the lab but that scent had been too familiar when he'd stuck his head in just to say hi to Hank. Now he stood as if rooted to the spot, a thick knot caught in his throat. Had he tried to speak it would not have been possible. She was there! Ororo was there!

"Hey, what's up? You okay, pop?" Jim asked when he saw tears in his fathers eyes.

A nod only. To talk was impossible and if he could he knew he would cry. He, a grown man older than any living human on earth, ready to burst into tears like a child. Perhaps he was growing old finally.

"She was here," he said when Jim left to answer the front door. The school was empty now and seldom had students, mutants more accepted now and thus other schools popping up to compete with Xavier's.

"Hmm?" Hank murmured, lost once again in his experiment.

"Ororo. She was here wasn't she?" His voice was choked, tight, almost broken.

Hank looked up curiously to find Logan's dark eyes focused on him. Reluctantly he grunted affirmation.

"When? What did she want? Did she say – is she alright?"

"She's fine."

"Where is she now?"

A shrug of indifference earned him a pained look and Logan grabbed him hard by the shoulders.

"Where is she, Hank?"

"I couldn't possibly know, Logan. She comes and goes . . ."

"Comes and goes! You've seen her before today? When? Why didn't you tell me?"

"What was there to tell, Logan? She came but sporadically."

He balled his hands into fist, would have wrung them had he not fought for control.

"I need to see her."

"I'm sorry, I can't arrange . . ."

"Yes you can arrange it! You know where she is – you probably studied her, know everything about her! Tell her I need her," he finished, his voice floundering, helpless, haunted.

So this was the ghost between Logan and Jean! Hank had thought it was Scott. Two ghosts make a very crowded bed, Hank mused.

"I can't summon her, Logan but I think _you_ can and your children."

"What're you talking about fur ball?"

"I've kept a log which might interest you."

It was all Logan could do not to unleash his claws and prod Hank to move quicker but shortly Hank retrieved a folder from his files and laid it out on his desk. But before Logan could make out more than a few words the papers went sailing through the air as if on a concentrated breeze that took them straight through an open window.

"Ro! What're you doing?" Logan groaned. His tone was so full of misery that Hank suddenly felt very guilty. But his loyalty was to Ororo, not Logan.

"I'm sorry, Logan. I had a lapse in judgment. And as far as _you're_ concerned young lady I expect those papers back by the end of the day," Hank said.

For a minute Logan stood there looking at his friend as if he thought the blue, bouncing Beast had lost his mind and then he realized Hank was talking to Ororo. Like an old friend who often visits.

"What's going on?" Jim asked as he came back, his arms carrying three large pizza boxes. He looked from his uncle to his father as he handed each his own box.

Logan put the box aside and strode past his son. He left the room in a hurry hoping he could track Ororo and convince her to stay this time.

"What's wrong with pop?"

"I'm not sure. Just a ghost of a problem perhaps," Hank said with a small sigh.

Jim noticed that the familiar scent that he'd smelled earlier was gone. He knew it wasn't a ghost but a woman – some kind of benevolent mutant he suspected, one of the kids of years ago perhaps lost and forgotten through the many changes the school had gone through. He wished she were flesh and blood so he could thank her.

Ororo knew she would have to be more careful after her little slip. She'd sensed Jim's arrival and had faded into mist but she had never hidden that aspect of herself from the young man. She had missed Logan's approach for his emotions were subdued as if his mind had been on other things than love and grief and joy and things that could not be. His sudden appearance had caught her off guard startling her. There was no cure for the ache within her at the sight of the man she loved. She longed to stay, to take shape again, to reach out to him, to hold him. But Jean would hate her truly if she went to Logan and she no longer wanted to hurt Jean. She knew that had she resisted Logan there might never have been a rift in his relationship with Jean. She hoped for Jean's happiness just as she hoped for Logan's happiness. And so she put her heart's desire aside.

Much later that day the papers were neatly placed back within the file and Ororo forbade Hank to talk to Logan of her, insisting that he move her files to a more secure location.

"Foolish man, I never knew you kept files on me and yet why I did not I do not know, how unlike you not to do so," she said.

"Perhaps you trusted me too much," Hank replied with a meek grin.

"Logan must never know about us – that I visit. You must promise me that you will not give him any further information about me. Will you do this for me?"

"You have my word, Ororo."

Silence and nothing. She was gone or at least her physical form. Sometimes she was before him, her elemental form flowing with all the elements of the world, and yet she could appear in a flash as human and whole as he. But it was still a strenuous effort to transform into flesh and so she seldom remained in human form.

"May I ask why you wish me to remain silent?" Hank ventured, certain she had not left.

"Oh, Henry he is a man, I can say nothing more."

Hank was left with more questions than answers. But when Logan came to him again with a slew of questions and accusations Hank told him what Ororo had said, that he was not to give him any information. Logan looked genuinely hurt. Hank felt truly sorry. Emotional Logan was uncomfortable to be around. There was some mystery between Logan and Ororo that Hank could not understand and he was sure he did not want to.

**-xox-**

It was a beautiful autumn day. A day so much like the last day Ororo remembered being truly alive. She rode the breeze, was the breeze, as she watched the children of her friends of old playing. Baseball. She loved days like these, a type of reunion full of taunts and laughter and chiding and secret romances. Like hers and Logan's oh so long ago.

Jamie and Layla's children were full of humor and practical jokes. Toss in Guido's son and the place could turn quickly into mayhem. Kitty and Peter's children were mild mannered and goodhearted although their invisibility tricks could be harrowing to anyone not familiar with their mutant talent. James and Theresa had two sons, both who resembled their father with his dark Native American looks and who were as different as night as day but were devoted to their parents who had a marriage as solid as Kitty's and Peter's.

Perhaps the most surprising pairing were Monet's and Rahne's who each married one of Jamie's duplicates. When they all went out together as a group people assumed the Jamie's were triplets. There was Jamie of course with Layla who had matured into a beautiful know it all who tempered Jamie's many divergent personalities, and Jameson as Monet had dubbed her dupe, and Jay, Rahne's husband. Their children looked quite a lot alike although Monet's had golden tans and one of Rahne's girls had red hair like her mother. Rictor had married Tabitha but they had no children. But Kurt did with Wanda Maximoff, another surprise to all that knew him, a daughter, Talia Josephine whom they called TJ and she looked just like him. Those that weren't mingling around the terrace barbecue, or inside were on the ball field.

The smells wafting on the wind reminded Ororo of Remy long lost and all the others long dead. She thought of Jean whenever she thought of Remy for she had felt a bond with those two above all others save Logan. Jean was sitting quietly with her daughter. Rose was as sweet as her name unless her temper flared and then she could be as wild as her father. Everyone knew not to step on her toes and so no one did.

The ball soared, struck by one of James' burly sons and Ororo felt a sudden urge to stem its flight. It was boys against girls and she was hoping the girls would win. A fly buzzed over the table of food on the terrace and she sent it on its way even as she resisted the urge to interfere in the game. And then she saw him. She would not be there if it were not for him. He had not changed while all the others looked much older, many of them hoping to soon be grandparents. He was filled with longing as he watched the game. He stood ramrod straight, his usually wild hair neatly combed, his dark eyes as sharp as ever. Her heart stopped beating if heart she had. He knew.

She saw him look at her as if he could see her standing before him. But then he sighed and slowly walked over to Jean and Rose. He had been so sad of late. Ororo had stayed away as long as she could but she simply couldn't stand to be away any longer when he was so very sad. He needed her. But he had Jean. It would not be right to give him comfort now.

The game played on. She remembered laying on the grass as her life ebbed away. How many years ago she did not know for time stood still for her. To be one with the elements meant there was no time for her life was eternal. And yet observing the growth of Logan's children she knew it had been a very long time and yet not long enough. Jean would never let Logan go until she was dead and buried. Ororo was not hoping for that but still she waited. One day she knew she would reunite with Logan for she would never stop loving him.

"She's here," Logan said.

"Who, papa?" Rose asked.

"Ororo."

"Why do you have to fill her head with that nonsense?" Jean moaned.

"She's here," he simply repeated.

"The dead don't watch over us like angels, that would be creepy," Jean replied.

"It was a day just like this," Kurt said.

"Was she as beautiful as her pictures?" Rose asked.

"Beauty personified," Hank said and then, looking at Jean, taking her hand in his, he whispered, "She has forgiven you, Jeanie."

"Oh, Hank . . . !" Jean was suddenly overcome with emotion.

"Forgive her of what?" Rose asked.

"It's . . . it's nothing. No, that's not true at all. It's a long story dear. I did something . . . awful," Jean said, looking at her husband. "I'm so sorry. It's taken me all this time . . . I-I . . . oh, Logan she was the most beautiful woman I've ever known," Jean finished with tears in her eyes as she looked from Logan to Hank.

Logan saw they were real tears and he sensed her sincerity but he also sensed anger. Anger at him? Anger with herself, at what she'd done all those years ago? She reached out and covered Logan's hand with her's, holding both of her old teammates hands as she came to a decision. Logan almost pulled his hand away but she squeezed gently, her anger fading into sadness.

"_I'm setting you free – go to her if there's a way_," Jean told him, the first and last time she would speak to him telepathically since their rift after Ororo's murder.

Logan actually fought to keep from crying. He really was getting old he thought and laughed.

"What's so funny, papa?" Rose asked.

"I'm old."

"No you aren't, you're never age," she laughed and added, "I'll be old before you."

Always this was before them. While they all grew old and gray haired Logan was as he used to be, young and vibrant. None of them resented him but sometimes Jean envied him. If she could live forever could she find Scott? She had never been able to summon the Phoenix to her not even from sheer force of will. She often wondered when her time came to pass on would she then be able to find Scott, to be with him, and would the Phoenix entity welcome her old and frail body as it had welcomed her skin and bones failing body when she'd fought to save her beloved Scott and the others as they'd made their descent into Earth's atmosphere? And if so could she be reborn again, ever young? This was always on the edge of her mind as she grew older but she never spoke her thoughts to anyone for who could answer these questions any better than she?

Logan squeezed Jean's hand, thankful but still too taken aback, too full of hope and fear and joy and doubt too. He couldn't speak. Jean smiled in turn and let him go. He got up and walked down to the lake. Someone called to him, telling him to put his old bones to task and help the guys beat the girls, who were winning.

"He's too old, don't let those good looks fool you!" Kitty called out.

"Old! Who's got the gray hair, you or me Kitten?" Logan snorted in good humor while Lockheed hissed. His Kitty wasn't that gray!

They went on with their game leaving him to lie in the grass, looking up at the sky. As blue as her eyes, he thought. He never wondered why he could never forget Ororo. He knew. Love. True love. When love was true you never stopped loving someone even when that person died. Ororo was simply a part of him. He had thought they could repair their mistakes when she had come back to him but then she had fled, the only thing she could do with Jean pregnant again. He had hoped for so much then even knowing he couldn't leave Jean and their child – their children. At that time they hadn't known they would have twins. He didn't blame Ororo for leaving him any more. She, like him, was all about honor, something he'd almost forgotten for wanting her so badly. He thought they could have been happy. He hoped she would see that they could still be happy.

Had he been happy without her? His children made him happy. And he was glad they'd had both parents as they grew up. Jean had been a decent wife and had stopped reading his mind and hadn't mentioned Scott just as he'd stopped talking about Ororo and accusing Jean of murdering her and their little girl. Yes, he had been happy in a way. But that happiness couldn't compare to the ecstasy that swelled within him now because _she_ was with him this very moment. He felt her. He always knew when she was near. Spirit or wraith, he wasn't sure what she was, but she held him and he felt the contentment he'd never had with anyone else – her warm tingling embrace, felt yet not felt, was his haven. And if any bothered to look towards where he lay they would have seen him holding hands with the most beautiful woman in heart and soul as she shifted into human form, this time to stay.

Hank caught Ororo's scent on the breeze and he searched the grounds, looking for some sign of her. He quickly spotted her by the lake with Logan and as he watched the pair he suddenly understood. Logan had Ororo wrapped in his arms and looked to be holding onto her as if he would never let her go. Like him Logan loved Ororo. Unlike him she returned Logan's love. Watching her in Logan's arms, solid flesh and blood with no trace of elements, hearing her gentle laughter, he saw what true love was. He was happy for her even happy for Logan but saddened for Jean who was huddled with her children talking quietly to them.

"Hank!" Kurt exclaimed and nudged his fellow blue mutant. "Is that . . . ?"

"Yes, Ororo."

"Ororo!" Kurt cried, leaping up but Hank quickly stopped him.

"Let them have a moment, Kurt."

"But it's Ororo, alive! I . . . Kitty! I must tell Kitty!"

"There will be plenty of time for a reunion, Kurt. Let her have a little quiet time with Logan. I have a feeling this is something they've both been waiting for for a long while. Give them a moment of peace."

"Ororo, alive and yet why am I surprised? I came back from the dead, Jean, Scott, Peter, Betsy . . ." Kurt chuckled as he got up and went to hug his wife, the list of those having returned from the dead too long to continue counting off.

At the lake insects buzzed and birds sung. The air was warm, the sky bright blue, the sun peeking in and out of voluptuous, white clouds as a soothing wind blew over the lovers. For Ororo and Logan it was as if time had stood still. Neither had aged, they were still very much in love, and exactly where they should have been over twenty years ago. They held each other in silence for a long time before Logan suddenly began to laugh.

"This amuses you my love?"

"Nope, just thinkin' of you an' Scooter hangin' out together all that time. How _is_ Slim?"

Ororo laughed. "I was wrong to lie to her. It was a small vengeance but wrong none the less. I knew you would know the truth but she was so gullible. That is how I knew she didn't really love you. Are you a little disappointed in me?"

"Darlin', it made waiting for you easier in a way, gave me something ta laugh at, funny as all get out. You always were a good tactician, darlin'. I'm just glad you got a little payback."

"What happens now?"

"She's giving me a divorce an' don't you back out on me again, darlin'. I've stayed with her for the kids, they're grown, in college. I ain't stayin' with Jean any longer."

"I do not want to destroy your family."

"Nah, you can't, maybe_ I _destroyed it, not there for the kids as much as I shoulda been but half the time I couldn't stand the sight of her, knowin' what she did to you."

"I've forgiven her and I hope you can forgive her too, Logan."

"I can if you stay with me, Ororo. We can get married as soon as the divorce goes through. Will you stay with me, Ro?"

"Always."

He grinned, held her tighter. "Always sounds pretty good to me, darlin'."

Jean watched as her husband kissed the woman she'd tried so hard to kill, the woman Logan loved enough to wait decades for, perhaps even longer. She envied him despite the momentary anger that surged within her. Couldn't he wait till she was gone before he slobbered all over Ororo? Jean looked away, hoped she could slip away without having to talk to the woman who was to take her place. She would leave today. She would try to find Scott! She would leave now, the children would be okay, but first she knew she had to tell them the truth. She owed Logan and Ororo that much. It was not a story she wanted to tell but she had been haunted by her actions for so long that she hoped telling the tale would further release her of her guilt and self loathing. Would her children hate her?

"I want you to know what I did a long time ago kids. I expect you may hate me but I was young and hurting and pregnant with you and . . . well I can make up a dozen excuses but the truth is that I killed Ororo."

"What?" Jim exclaimed.

"That's impossible!" Rose cried.

"That's crazy mom!"

"That's what everyone but your father thought. But I was angry and hurt and he was leaving me to be with her and I didn't want to raise a child without a husband, I was pregnant with your older sister. I wanted a normal family, he didn't love me – I was horrible. I've hated myself for so long now."

"So that's what uncle Hank meant when he said she forgives you?"

"Yes, Rosie."

"Well, how'd you do it? How'd you kill her? Like you killed those billions on that planet that time you were the dark Phoenix?" Jim inquired enthusiastically.

"James!" Jean sighed.

"She really is beautiful then," Rose murmured thoughtfully.

Jean replied, "Yes, yes she is." And after she hugged her son and kissed her daughter she told them she loved them but she couldn't stay there any more.

"Where will you go? Are you going to be on the run now?" Jim wanted to know.

"When will you come back mom?"

"You kids will be too busy with school to miss me and since your father and I are getting a divorce I want to see a few people about a man I used to know. "

"You and pop are splitting up?"

"He's still in love with her isn't he?" Rose asked.

"He's always loved her just as I've always loved my Scott. I understand that now and I want you both to try to understand for your father's sake. I hurt him badly when I did the unthinkable. I want him to be happy now. I want to give him that chance. Maybe it'll work out, maybe he'll find he was wrong and it won't work out. Maybe I'll find I'm wrong."

"But if she's dead . . ." Rose's words trailed off as a loud squeal of glee and then shouts and laughter filled the air.

"Hey what's going on?" Jim asked.

"Ororo!" Kitty screeched as she raced toward the lake.

Lockheed flew ahead of his mistress and landed on Ororo's shoulder, cooing happily, and was rewarded with a gentle pat. Kurt teleported and gave Ororo such a heart felt hug she had to cry out and make him stop. Peter and Hank soon joined them. But Kitty couldn't stop hugging Ororo so Peter wrapped his great big arms around his wife and sister of old and squeezed them both tightly while expressing his joy in his native language. Kurt was laughing and waving his family over. They were used to one or the other returning from the dead but Ororo had meant so much to many of them. She had truly been a beautiful person. Perhaps weak when it came to love but a true and good friend to the little group of X-Men that surrounded her.

"Oh my gosh! Mom, that's her!" Rose exclaimed.

Jean frowned, unable to still her jealousy.

"Well you can't go to prison now mom since she's not dead, besides that was so long ago the statute of limitations has probably run out anyway. I can check with Matt if you want but, well, she's alive!"

"Jimmy, can't you just listen to what mom has to say?"

"I'm just saying at least mom isn't going to prison, Rosie. I mean if you kill someone they lock you up."

"If that was true then almost all our family and friends would be in jail!"

"I'm just saying you can't just flat out kill someone like mom did and not be punished!"

"They couldn't keep her locked up, she's a telepath. She'd just make everyone . . ."

"Okay, kids that's enough. I do deserve to be punished. Getting a divorce is a type of punishment and the guilt I've carried, my self loathing, but where I'm going may end up as punishment. I don't expect to come back until I find what I'm looking for."

"Where're you going?"

"I'm going to pay a visit to Dr. Strange. I should have done this a lot sooner, saved Logan and myself from an unhappy marriage. I'm going to make a deal with the devil if I can."

"You mean you're not coming back at all?"

"She said she is after she finds what she's looking for, aren't you listening, Rosie?"

"She said she's going to make a deal with the devil, didn't you hear that? That doesn't sound too good, Jimmy!"

Jean sighed. "I mean to come back, I just don't know when. In the meantime I want you to accept Ororo being with your father."

"Is papa going to marry her?"

"He can't do that!" Jim exclaimed.

"I want him to. And I need you both to try and accept that. Please. This is how it should have been before you were even born."

"She might be nice but I don't want her to be my step mother!" Rose cried.

"I don't know about that either, mom. You leave and pop marries a woman who's just back from the dead, I mean that's not only weird but it's kinda creepy."

"They've _all_ come back from the dead, what's creepy about that, Jimmy? But you're right it is weird. I hate this! Why did you have to go and kill her in the first place mom? What was wrong with you, mom? Papa wouldn't have left you when you were pregnant with us and you know he wouldn't have!"

"I did know that," Jean admitted. "I was jealous, hurt, angry. Your father had wanted me for so long, even when Scott and I were married. I was so used to him wanting me and then he didn't want me and he wanted her. It was too much. I lost it. It was a crime of passion but I was still wrong, so wrong you can't imagine the anguish it's caused me. But I did what I did only to find out she wasn't really dead, thankfully, and now . . ."

"Now you've ruined our family!"

"Oh, stop over reacting, Rosie. I mean when you think about it Pop and mom never hung out together except for dinner and school stuff. It isn't like anything's going to change really . . . I guess. Mom was a mass murderer before, just add another person to the list is all 'cause you did kill her, mom, she's been dead since before we were born!"

"What difference does that make, she's not dead now but our mother is leaving!"

"And so are we just like we have for the last two years."

"But . . ."

"Children!"

"Besides, let's face facts. We both know Ororo's not the bad guy here 'cause we've known her probably all our lives. She always took care of us and I liked her even when I didn't know who she really was," Jim said now, having caught Ororo's very familiar scent wafting in on a breeze. He had his father's healing abilities and heightened senses but to a lesser degree. His parents were thankful he had no claws.

"We've known her? How is that even possible?" Rose asked.

"Don't you remember flying that time when you leaped off the shed and all those other times you tried flying?"

"That . . . that was her?"

"Yup."

"Then all the times . . ."

"Yup."

"I always thought it was my guardian angel."

"I guess she was," Jean said, feeling baffled and a bit jealous, but also very grateful.

"Wow."

"Jean! Jean!" Kurt called. "Jean, look! Look! Ororo's alive! Jean!"

Jean cringed inwardly as she heard Logan burst out in loud laughter and saw him pull Ororo to him. "I have to go now," she said, flustered and angry as she looked away. "You two are going to be alright then?"

"I gotta say the whole marrying pop thing, I just don't know about that mom but if you don't mind I guess _we_ shouldn't."

Jean had really hoped her children wouldn't be open to Ororo at first and yet when her daughter also assured her that she would be alright Jean felt a little lighter. Some of her guilt was slowly ebbing. Her anger was too. She knew Logan was just happy and she had, after all, given him permission to be with Ororo. She just needed to get away as quickly as she could. She couldn't face the others much less Ororo.

Haunted by hatred and guilt, she realized, was a hard, cruel way to live a life. But things would be better now that she'd told the truth. And eventually she'd be okay with her children accepting Logan's choice. Soon they'd have a new mother and she'd risk dying trying to find Scott. If Steven Strange couldn't help she'd seek out Kurt's father if she had to. She never considered, as she ran away, that hell was the place where she belonged and not Scott.

**~Finis~**


	6. Epilogue

**Secrets Still – Epilogue**

**A/N** – I hadn't planned on an epilogue but I will admit that I wasn't quite satisfied with the story ending with Jean and some of you kind of said as much and I don't blame you. I couldn't sleep as I thought about an ending so I was up all night typing and proofing. This is for those who were so kind to give such detailed reviews and opinions or asked for more, particularly dawnkind, Gabreya, nakala and 6MAROON ROSE9. Thank you for inspiring me!

**-xox-**

Jean never found Scott. After packing a bag as fast as she could she sneaked down to the garage, got into her car, and sped off to Greenwich Village. Once there she'd driven around frantically trying to find a parking space and finally found one many blocks away. She ran all those blocks to Dr. Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum but as she crossed the street in front of his headquarters she was struck by a car. And no, Ororo was not at the wheel and it wasn't Logan driving either. It was a simple honest accident, the driver shaken tremendously, for Jean had raced across the street without looking in either direction. She'd been in such a hurry hoping that Stephen would be able to aid her search for Scott. And maybe she did find Scott in whatever afterlife she experienced but that would be an entirely different story.

"Don't look at me like that. Yeah, I'm not gonna go ballistic like the last time," Logan growled. "You know, I wonder if any mind wiping stops when the person that did the mind wipin' dies? Guess it doesn't seein' as how no one's lookin' at me an' no one ever mentioned how I acted at Ororo's funeral.

"She was really crazy I think. Guess I didn't help matters. But she changed after the whole Phoenix stuff. She wasn't the woman I loved back then. I didn't see that 'cause I wanted her to still be that young girl I thought was so fresh an' sweet an' innocent an' caring. Everyone grows up an' changes but I blamed her for not bein' the old Jean. I was too hard on her. What? You don't think I was? Really?"

Lockheed shook his head in response.

"You see a lot of stuff we don't see little fella so I'm gonna take your word for it. Makes me feel a little better too. I've been . . . I don't know, maybe out of it, my games been off. Life's been one hell of a nightmare up till now. Now it's a whole lot better, an' I don't mean 'cause she's dead but I ain't gonna lie, I'm glad as hell she's dead just don't go repeatin' that to the twins, bub."

Lockheed snorted in reply. He was used to Logan's diatribes so this was a welcome change. Like Logan he had been thinking of Ororo's funeral when Logan had been completely drunk and shouting accusations that no one but the two of them had believed. The memory of Logan trying to choke the red head woman made Lockheed snicker. He didn't dislike Jean but he didn't mind her being gone for good. Or at least he hoped it would be for good. He remembered that she was the Phoenix. But something told him even if she was able to capture that entity again somehow she would seek out Scott rather than Logan. He couldn't blame here there.

Logan hadn't been very nice to Jean over the years but then again she'd killed the woman he'd fallen in love with while they were married. Or maybe he'd fallen in love with Ororo when they were sneaking off those times before he married Jean. Lockheed didn't know the answer to that. He wondered why humans were so intent on messing up their lives. His was simple. He loved Kitty and she loved him. She married Peter and he found he had room in his heart to love the Russian just as he loved Ororo and Logan because they meant so much to Kitty. Love was everything, he thought, and there was enough to go around, enough that if everyone would just embrace it the world would be a better place. So simple and yet so very hard for the large humans. Small humans were more like him.

He hoped Logan saw that now, what the little humans instinctively seemed to know. He'd thought maybe Logan wouldn't attend Jean's funeral because he'd be too bitter but the Wolverine had made a last minute appearance as Hank gave his eulogy. Lockheed observed that Logan was a changed man and he was happy for his friend. He was happy altogether because Ororo was alive again and he'd missed her soothing presence but also because Kitty and Peter were happier than he'd seen them in a long time. The couple had been happy despite ups and downs in their relationship but now they were nearly jumping with joy. He didn't even mind that they'd been spending nearly all their time with Ororo. It had only been a few days but spending time with a happy Logan made up for it. Lockheed and Logan had become very good chums which is why when he saw the straggler settle in the back row he'd left Kitty and Peter and Ororo. He was certain that Logan would need a friend today of all days.

"He's here," Kitty whispered to Ororo from the front row of chairs that had been set up on the lawn for Jean's funeral.

"I know but I think he needs a little time to himself, after all his wife is dead."

"It's kind of weird in a way, don't you think? How Jean wasn't really close to any of us except maybe Hank. She kind of shut herself off from us after her little girl and everyone else died in that attack. I felt sorry for her but then she had Logan and I thought they were happy for the most part. But I'm still a little confused with you being back and her leaving without so much as a goodbye and now you're with Logan."

"Sssh, Katzen," Kurt whispered as he leaned over Ororo to make his point to Kitty. "What is, is meant to be and we have our Ororo back, now sssh!" he added but he smiled at Kitty despite his warning.

Peter who was sitting on the other side of Kitty chuckled and winked at Ororo who grinned, feeling happy and grateful. Surrounded by her loved ones Ororo felt so much love. She almost wished she had returned sooner but she was sure that would have made for a very unhappy reunion. No, she'd done the right thing by waiting. Love was so worth waiting for.

"I think I _will_ check on Logan now," Ororo said.

"I'll go with you!" Kitty volunteered eagerly and would have jumped up to tag along if Peter hadn't held her back.

"No, Katya, stay with me and the children," Peter said, mindful that Ororo would probably want to be alone with Logan for a change.

"But I . . ."

"Give them a little space, dear," Peter insisted.

"I love you, Kitten," Ororo said as she took hold of Kitty's hand and held it tightly. She let it go momentarily but ran her hand over the top of Kitty's hand before she simply disappeared.

"I love you back but I'm never going to get used to that," Kitty said and she tucked an arm through Peter's. "I love you too you perceptive man you."

"I love you back too," Peter said and kissed the top of his wife's head then draped an arm over her shoulders.

Lockheed leapt from Logan's shoulder when Ororo appeared out of nowhere. He snorted in annoyance but then he landed on Ororo's shoulder and nuzzled her ear a little. Ororo always knew just how to pet him where he liked it the most. He sighed as her fingers stroked him gently. He was glad she was back. And he was glad that everyone could be happy now. He knew her children would be happy after a time because everyone loved them and would be there for them. Love was the key to life he knew and after thinking this he flew off to his beloved Kitty.

"Lockheed's a good listener," Logan said as Ororo sat in the empty chair next to him. "He put up with a lot of crazy stuff from me when you left. I think he probably kept me sane just by listening to me. How're _you_ holdin' up darlin'?"

"Me? Oh, I am perfectly fine. I wish I were not but I had no love for Jean. I wish I did. I wish . . ."

"Don't even say it. I dragged you into all this, it was my fault an' I'm the only one to blame. I should've left you alone, I didn't because I couldn't. I loved you only I guess I didn't know what love really was back then. I don't want you to feel guilty for my crap, you got that?"

Ororo smiled.

"I just want you to be happy. I'm gonna do everything I can to make up for being the stupidest guy who ever lived."

"Well, you'll have a lot of making up to do," Ororo said, half teasing, half serious.

"I know it. What say we get married today? I already got the license. Kurt can marry us."

"Wouldn't that be too soon?"

"Not soon enough."

"I think you should ask your children what they think."

"Why? They ain't the one's gonna be married to you."

"I don't wish to be on their bad side."

He laughed. "That's never gonna happen."

"And yet . . . "

"Okay, okay, whatever you want. I'll see what they say but if they say it doesn't matter then you're gonna be my wife in a few hours an' then we're gonna go away for a while. Between Kitty, Kurt an' Hank, and the others I can barely say hello to you!"

"That's really sweet of you, Logan. Do I mean that much to you?"

"You mean everything to me, Ro. I know it now an' I ain't gonna let anything get in the way of us being together. You an' me, we're gonna have everything we should've had if . . . "

"No more if's, alright?"

He looked at her, saw how serious she looked and so he nodded. "No more if's," he agreed and leaned over and pressed his lips gently to hers.

"I can't believe papa's kissing her at our mother's funeral!" Rose wailed. She was sitting in the first row of seats alongside her brother. A damp tissue was balled up in her hand and her eyes were red rimmed.

"I can't believe mom's dead," Jim said.

"This is all her fault."

"If you mean mom's fault, yeah, you're right. Pop said she wasn't the same after she went all dark Phoenix and stuff."

"I meant it's Ororo's fault, not mom's even if it is really mom's fault. But that wasn't really her, she wasn't the Phoenix that killed that planet. She was in that capsule in the ocean."

Jim shrugged. He wanted to go. He wanted to pack his bags and get on the next flight back to Oxford and just not think about everything that had happened in such a short time.

"I hope she's with Scott now," Rose said.

"I wish she hadn't gone off trying to find him. She'd still be here."

"I wish she was still here with us too!" Rose sobbed.

"I guess karma's a bitch," Jim muttered.

"You know mom wouldn't want you cussing," Rose said.

"Yeah, I know. She wanted us to be happy too and she wanted us to be okay with Ororo. You can't blame Ororo for mom being hit by a car. And mom wasn't the Phoenix when she did what she did to Ororo, she knew what she was doing."

"Are you okay with her and papa then, Jimmy?"

Jim looked back at Ororo who was wrapped in his father's arms. He frowned. Ororo hadn't been back but a few days and he hadn't said anything other than hi to her. Kitty, Kurt and Hank and his father were always hanging around her. Even Monet and Rahne and the others were seeking her out. Everyone thought she was perfect or something. It was obvious she'd been a good person the way they were all so glad she was back. What's more he knew she'd stayed away but had still watched over him and his sister. He appreciated that. He'd had a family because of that and he'd liked their family dinners every night and talking to his father before bedtime, sometimes getting his father to play a video game with him.

He was glad his mother wasn't really a murderer too even if she really kind of was. And he'd always wanted to thank Ororo. He'd thank her too one day just not any time soon. It was going to take a while for him to get used to her and her being with his father. Still, he knew his mother wanted him to treat her right so he would.

"Yeah," he said. "I'm okay with pop being happy."

"I want him to be happy too but not at mom's funeral."

"What the hell, mom's dead an' doesn't know what's going on. She'd be bored to death the way unc's goin' on about her. Let's just get out of here an' tell pop to go on an' marry Ororo today an' get it over with. We'll go back to school tonight instead of tomorrow an' deal with it later. I hate all this funeral stuff!"

"You always want to deal with things later just like Scarlet O'Hara."

"So, why should we make pop miserable just 'cause _we_ are? That's not what mom wanted."

Rose was silent as she stared at her father and Ororo. After a bit she shook her head and said, "You're right, that's not what mom would want. I don't like it though. I just wish he'd wait for a while."

"Like I said, we're leaving, what's it matter really?"

Rose pressed her lips together and for all the world she looked just like her deceased mother. "I wish I could hate Ororo but I don't. I don't know how I feel any more. Mom killed her so that makes our mother the villain like you said but mom wasn't evil. She was just hurt and betrayed. I know pop said nothing happened between him and Ororo and I believe him but mom must have been so hurt to do what she did." She shook her head trying to make sense out of her mother's crime. "But you're right, Jimmy. Mom said she wanted them to be together so I won't say anything. Oh, how I wish she wasn't dead!"

"I think you should let me go," Ororo told Logan.

"Darlin' I ain't never lettin' you go."

"Rose is watching us and she doesn't look happy."

"Oh. Right." Logan quickly released her and tried to look somber. In fact mostly everyone there was trying their best to look somber as Hank droned on about the goodness of Jean. Most of them barely knew her. Kitty had summed it up well when she'd told Ororo that after Jean's child died she had never associated much with anyone. Whether it was to hide her failing marriage or from depression who was to say? Hank, who was closest to her but was too preoccupied with Ororo, had done nothing to bring her out of her reclusive state and so neither had anyone else. Now they were saying goodbye to a woman who was almost a stranger to them. Little did they know that the mind blocks Jean had put in place had a lot to do with that.

"And finally, let me end with a heartfelt, Jean you will be missed greatly. And, Logan my friend, would you like to say a few words?"

Ororo and Logan looked at Hank in shock and then they looked at each other.

"There ain't nothin' I can say that you didn't already say," Logan replied from his seat. "Well, maybe that she gave me the best gifts in the world. Ya couldn't ask for two better kids an' . . ." he stopped because Jean had freed him to be with Ororo and he didn't know how to say that without hurting his kids. "She wanted me to be happy after I made her life hell. That's the Jean I'll always remember, the Jean that sacrificed herself for the people she loved," he ended.

"Bravo," Hank said and then he made his way to his seat as Kurt came up to say a prayer before the burial.

Like his son Logan just wanted it to be over with but for a different reason. He yearned to make love to Ororo. He'd ached to make love to her ever since Jean had set him free but nearly every moment, day and night, people had been crowding around her wanting to spend time with her. Old team members had flown in to see her and then they'd gotten the news of Jean's death and more people showed up. His initial reaction once he'd heard the news of his wife's death was relief but he'd quickly been sorry for feeling that way as he thought of his children.

He'd tried to keep his happiness from showing when he'd told them of their mother's death. Neither had said much to him. Rose had cried. He'd expected that since she was a crier like her mother. He hated when women cried but he'd awkwardly held his daughter until Ororo, Kitty, Peter, and Kurt and Hank had come into the room. None of them had realized what they'd just interrupted. And Rose abruptly pulled away from her father and walked out followed by her brother.

His children had barely spoken to him or Ororo. He had a feeling they didn't like her but he was sure if they would just try to get to know her that they'd love her. Maybe he was seeing things through rose colored glasses but he longed to be with Ororo. He needed them to accept her. He had missed her for over twenty years. He had hoped and prayed that she would come back to him and now she had. And yet it still felt like everything was against them. He was sure his kids probably hated him. He also knew he wouldn't do anything to turn them against him.

Still, he remembered telling himself that if he found love again he'd never let it slip away from him like he had before. Ororo loved him just as he was. She hadn't complained when he'd brought her to his run down cabin, she hadn't complained that a quickie wedding wouldn't be enough and he knew she wouldn't demand a real wedding later with all their friends there. No, this woman was just who she always was, beautiful, considerate, selfless, confident, accepting. He could go on and on about how wonderful she was. She wasn't perfect but damn near perfect.

Fortunately for Logan and Jim the burial was quick and simple. Hank and Jim and Rose cried though Jim fought hard not to. Logan couldn't help holding Ororo's hand. He tried to stand still but it was hard not to fidget. He wanted to move, to jump, to dance, he felt so giddy with joy. And later that night after Kurt had pronounced Logan and Ororo man and wife, after Rose and Jim okayed the marriage though they didn't attend the ceremony but left for school early, Logan carried his bride to his cabin. Kitty and Peter had quickly cleaned the cabin once they heard the news and everything was neat and homey.

"I ain't perfect you know, Ororo but . . ." Logan said as he gently lowered her to their bed but Ororo laughed and cut him off.

"You do not have to tell me something I already know," she countered.

"See, that's why I love you so much, darlin'. You're so damn near perfect for me it's uncanny. I'm no where near perfect like you but I'm gonna do everything I can to make you happy an' make up for the past."

"I expect that, after all I have waited a very long time to be with you."

"You do realize that we've got a whole bunch of lifetimes together don't you?"

"I do."

"You don't think you're get tired of being married to me, eh?"

"I might."

"Really?"

"I'm only teasing, my love. I expect life with you, forever, will be a challenge that I welcome and that I will enjoy."

"I love you," he said. "You'll never know how much, Ro."

"I have a good idea, just don't stop telling me."

"That's a promise. A hundred years from now I'll still be telling you how much I love you."

"And now, no more words, show me, make love to me my love. I have waited for you for so long and oh how I have missed your touch."

"Mrs. Howlett, you don't even know how much I've been wantin' ta make you mine," Logan said, smiling down at his wife. And he kissed her very gently before he complied.

He felt as if he were reborn, a new man full of hope, for his dreams had finally come true. More than anything he wanted to make this woman happy for the rest of their lives. No, he needed to make her happy for the rest of their life for they were one now and always would be. He would let nothing ever come between them again and he meant that with every part of his being. He lavished her in love that night and continued lavishing her in love as the decades passed.

Never once did he ever dread going home to his wife. Returning to Ororo was the greatest joy he knew aside from spending time with his children and grandchildren and then his great grandchildren. And Jim and Rose did grow to love Ororo who had never forced herself on them but always respected them and gave them room. She turned out to be an excellent step mother and grandmother and great grandmother. Her natural love for Logan's children grew as she got to know them so that they became her children too. She took their deaths very hard though they both lived to a good old age.

Once Logan had feared outliving all his loved ones but with Ororo by his side he had no fear of anything. Yes there was deep sadness when Kitty and Peter, Kurt and Hank and other team mates died and the pain he felt when finally his children's time came was nearly unbearable for who wants to outlive their children? But there was always utter joy leaping within him so truly happy he was to still be with the woman he had always loved but for years had been too blind to see. Love meant everything to him and he never took it nor Ororo for granted ever again.

~**Finis~**


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